1921-05-11

ARMISTICE DAY

Hon. HUGH GUTHRIE (Minister of Militia):: Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to ask the consent of the House to move that Bill No. 119, an Act respecting Armistice Day, now appearing on Public Bills and Orders be transferred to Government Orders.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Right Hon. C. J. DOHERTY (Minister of Justice):: I beg leave to lay on the Table of the House, copies of a Supplementary Extradition Convention with the United States signed at London on January 15, 1917. This is the treaty which makes wife 'desertion an extraditable offence.



CHINESE IMMIGRATION

[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. A. CALDER (Minister of Immigration and Colonization) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 146, to amend the Chinese Immigration Act.
Hon. CHARLES MURPHY:: Explain
this.


Mr. CALDER:: The most important
amendment contained in the Bill will be found in the first section. As the law now stands, Chinese merchants coming to Canada are admitted without paying a head tax, on the production of a certificate of identity which is issued by the officers of the Chinese Government and vised by the British Consular Officers in China. It has been found during the past year-I think to some extent owing to conditions in China-that a good deal of abuse has prevailed in connection with the issuing of these certificates. Consequently we propose to abolish the certificates and require every Chinese merchant landing on our western coasts to satisfy the controller of immigration there as to the' bona fides of his status.


Charles Murphy: Is this controller of
Chinese immigration an official of this Government?


James Alexander Calder: Yes. The second amendment is to the effect that a board of inquiry, appointed under the general Immigration Act, may determine the question as to whether or not a person of Chinese race has legally entered Canada. Under the law as it now stands, if any question arises in that connection it must be tried by a magistrate. Under our general immigration law, applying to all other people, these cases are heard by a board of inquiry and determined by them, so it is proposed to make the two laws uniform in that respect. The third amendment relates to section 18 of the Chinese Immigration Act. That section deals with and enumerates the prohibited classes-for example paupers, lunatics and others of that category, The provision in the present Chinese Act does not go as far as a similar provision in our general law, and the object of this amendment is to make the two laws the same in that respect-that is to define in both our Acts, the general Act and the Chinese Immigration Act, the classes that are prohibited and to make them the same. Then there is a further provision to this effect: Under the law as it now stands, Chinese, other than the non-immigrant class, who enter Canada are required to pay a head tax of $500. They, however, have the right to return to China. That is called "registering out." They obtain a certificate when they leave and under that certificate they are entitled to return to Canada at any time within the year without again paying the head tax. It is proposed to make the period a two-year period instead of, as at present, one year. Then there is a fifth amendment to this effect: That where a person of the Chinese race has entered Canada illegally-if he belongs to, say, any of the prohibited classes, and has succeeded in securing entry to Canada illegally, and is afterwards found-the question as to his right to remain in Canada shall be determined by the controller of Chinese immigration. There is, of course, in all cases an appeal to the minister, as undtsr the general Immigration Act. In addition there are a number of minor amendments which deal largely with small matters of administration.
Motion agreed to and Bill read the first time.



QUESTIONS

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)

*Mr. PRIPP:: 1.	When the Stores shed was erected on Cartier Square for Military purposes during the Great War were assurances given to the Corporation of the City of Ottawa, by the Department of Militia, that the building was only of a temporary character, and that it would be removed as soon as possible after the war terminated?
2.	If so, is it the intention of the Government to cause This unsightly structure to be removed at an early date?


Hon. Mr. GUTHRIE:: 1.	No.
2.	It is unfortunately necessary to require this building for some considerable time, as it is fully occupied with war stores.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAY-ST. SIMON
Mr. TRAHAN:: 1.	Has Mr. Didace Rodrique ever been in the
employ of the Canadian National Railways at St. Simon, as telegraph operator or station agent?	.
2.	Is he still in the service of the Government? *
3.	If not, when did he resign or was he discharged?
4.	If discharged, what was the reason for his dismissal?
5.	Does the said Rodrique receive a pension from the Government? If so, what is the rate of same?


Hon. Mr. REID:: 1.	Yes; as station agent at St. Simon.
2.	No.
3 and 4. He was pensioned December 1, 1914.
5. Yes; twenty-three dollars and eighteen cents per month.


POSTMISTRESS OF PIERREVILLE
Mr. BALL:: ,
1.	Did the Post Office Inspector of the Montreal district visit Madame Boucher on the date of her dismissal as Postmistress of Pierreville?
2 If so, did he say to her on that occasion, "that she had served the Crown and the public faithfully for twenty-five years; but here are my orders from the Postmaster General. Hand me your keys and your equipment. You are dismissed as Postmistress."	*
3.	Did he give her any reason for her dismissal ?


Right Hon. Mr. DOHERTY:: 1.	Yes, the Pierreville office was visited by the assistant inspector.
2.	No.
3.	Yes, that she had allowed outsiders to handle mail contrary to regulations, which she admitted.



STB. ROSE DE WATFORD-MAIL CONTRACT

Mr. CANNON:: 1.	Wh-o has the nontract for the transportation of mail from the station at the village of Ste. Rose de Watford, in the county of Dorchester?
2.	How many times daily is the mail carried?
3.	Has the number of trips been decreased* of late?
4.	If so, why?
5.	What is the amount of the contract?


Right Hon. Mr. DOHERTY:: 1.	Jean Lacasse.
2.	Once daily with one additional trip on Saturdays.
3 and 4. Yes. The former frequency was found to be in excess of actual requirements, seven trips per week being a sufficient frequency to meet the postal needs of the locality.
5. Seven hundred dollars per annum.



JUDGE SNIDER'S REPORT

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. ANGUS McDONALD (Timiskam-ing) :: I should like to ask the right hon. Prime Minister when we may expect Judge Snider's report.


Right Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Prime Minister) :: The commissioner has not notified the Government of any date when the report will be submitted. So far as the Secretary of State knows, to whose department the report will come, it has not yet been submitted.
'	THE BUDGET



DEBATE CONTINUED ON THE ANNUAL STATEMENT PRESENTED BY THE MINISTER OF FINANCE

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Tuesday, May 10,'the debate on the motion'of Hon. Sir Henry Drayton (Minister of Finance), that Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair for the House to go into Committee of Ways and Means, and the proposed amendment thereto- of Hon. W. S. Fielding.
Hon. C. C. BALLANTYNE (Minister of Marine and Fisheries):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that the very able Budget presented to the House by my colleague the hon. Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton) will receive very general approval throughout the country, and I have been very much gratified to hear the warm words of commendation that have fallen from hon. members on both sides of the House who have so far taken part in this debate.
I do not intend to refer in any great detail to the Budget, but one or two salient features of it will, I am sure, appeal to hon. members and to the people generally. The revenues for last year exceeded the ordinary expenses, including all pensions and current war charges by $69,400,000, and exceeded the sum total of the ordinary expenses, together with the regular charges to capital and war, by $12,298,000. I am sure hon. members will agree with me that, considering the very trying year the country has passed through, special thanks are due to our able minister for the skilful manner in which he has looked after the national finances, particularly in view of the very significant fact that he has been able to do so without any fresh borrowings. Another very gratifying feature is that our revenue for the year 1920-21 exceeded that of the previous fiscal year by the large sum of $83,000,000.
I recognize, Sir, that great freedom of debate is allowed to hon. members when speaking on the Budget, but I must say that the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) last night exceeded, in my humble opinion at any rate, the usual bounds of courtesy and failed to maintain that high standard of debate which is associated with our deliberations when he took up the time of this House by reading imaginary letters evolved from his peculiarly fertile brain. If the hon. member in taking this course had refrained from connecting the names of ministers of the Crown holding two of the most important portfolios in the Government, no one in this House would have taken any exception to the playful diversion that appears to appeal to the hon. member in writing imaginary letters. But I want to say that your Honour very properly described the action of the hon. member last night when you reminded him that it was in very bad taste.
I am sorry that the hon. member is not in his seat at the present time. I am satisfied that he had an ulterior motive when he wrote those imaginary letters. I do not consider that it was either good taste or good political tactics for the hon. member to weave together the letter of the hon. Minister of Customs and Inland Revenue (Mr. Wigmore), the reply of the right hon. Prime Minister, (Mr. Meighen) and his imaginary letter that was supposed to have been written by me as Minister of Marine and Fisheries to my colleague the Minister of Public Works (Mr. McCurdy). I can imagine that when the

general election is on certain politicians of a peculiar type will take care on the hustings all over the country to say:	If you
will turn to the pages of Hansard you will find first of all the letter of the Minister of Customs, then the reply of the right hon. Prime Minister, and also a letter written by the Minister of Marine and Fisheries to the Minister of Public Works. And what will follow? The usual declaration, that these men occupying the treasury benches are making an unfair use of their power in trying to influence business to the companies that they may happen to be connected with.
I find it difficult, Sir, to keep within the bounds of parliamentary language in referring to an incident that has never before occurred in this House, and I am sure will never be repeated. Aside from the hon. member for Brome, I do not think there is a single gentleman in this House who would have invented such an imaginary letter and placed it on the pages of Hansard. It is true that I am a director of various companies, and I have on a previous occasion stated to this House that I have no apology to make for holding those positions, for necessarily a business man must be a member of several boards of directors. But I want to point out to my hon. friend from Brome that two of the companies that he credits me in this imaginary letter with being a director of are companies in which I have no such control. Therefore his imagination led him astray in this instance. Sir, I have already taken up too much of the valuable time of this House in referring to the tactics of my hon. friend from Brome. Such tactics are beneath the contempt of every hon. member, and therefore I shall refrain from making any further allusion to them.
In connection with this incident, however, Mr. Speaker, I think it is the duty of this House to so amend the rules that in the future we may have no recurrence of this practice of producing imaginary letters. As I have already stated, I do not know of any other hon. member who would be so lacking in good taste as to follow in the steps of the hon. member for Brome, but at the same time the rules of the House should not allow such imaginary letters to be officially recorded on the pages of Hansard with the names of ministers of the Crown attached thereto.
Now, Sir, I desire to pass from that to the remarks of the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding). No

man holds the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's in higher esteem than I do; he is a man very highly thought of in this blouse and throughout the country. There was a time when he and I could see eye to eye on the matter of the tariff, but in these days our views are, of course, totally divergent/


Mr. LAPOINTE:: Hear, hear.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: The hon. member for Quebec East .says, "Hear, hear." But I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that my views have not changed; those of the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's have. I was somewhat amused to hear the veteran statesman, speaking officially for hon. gentlemen opposite, voice his disappointment that the Government had not seen fit to revise the tariff, and express the view that a general revision should have taken place at this session. I was reminded of the speeches of my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King). I recall, as all hon. gentlemen do, his statements in this House and outside of the House that the Government hold no mandate from the people; that we have no right to change the tariff. Yet in his speech yesterday the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's expressed deep regret at the decision of the Government not to make any general revision of the tariff.
I was surprised also at the remarks made by the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's with regard to free trade. As was evident to every hon. member -on this side, he skilfully baited his hook with the very best bait he could get and dangled it for some time in front of our friends of the Agrarian group. He said: "I am a free trader as far as theory goes." He appealed to them and said: "You think you are free traders, but you are not. What is the use of thinking any longer that you are a free trade group? After all, there is a great similarity between the Agrarian party in this House and the party to which I belong." But Sir, I find it difficult to reconcile the arguments of the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's with the speeches that have been delivered in this House and outside by the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar), leader of the Agrarian party and by the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark). Every one will agree that the hon. member for Red Deer is an out-and-out free trader. He has never hidden his light under a bushel; in this House and everywhere he speaks he

says that he.is a pronounced free trader of the Cobden type. The leader of the Agrarian party, the hon. member for Marquette, is equally a pronounced free trader, except that he is of a somewhat more prudent turn of mind; instead of cutting off the heads of the protectionist voters in this country at one fell swoop he is in favour of a slow, lingering death. But so far as the abolition of protection is concerned his views are identical with those of the hon. member for Red Deer. I need not dwell further on that subject; we accept the free trade sentiments so eloquently expressed by the hon. member for Red Deer and by the hon. member for Marquette, and we realize that if they ever reach power they will wipe out every vestige of protection and carry out the policies that they have enunciated. But, Sir, the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's made another statement yesterday which differs a little from the views which he has enunciated in the past. Referring to the establishment of new industries and the investment of new capital in this country, he said:
If there are any people In Canada who are contemplating the establishment of new lines of business in which they feel that tariff protection is necessary, I do them a friendly service when I say: "Don't do it," because anybody who counts upon the continuance of a protective policy is bound to find that he is pursuing a delusion. If any outside capitalist purposes coming to Canada to start some industry which he believes can only be kept alive by protection, again, I advise him not to come. I say, Sir, that the policy of indiscriminate fostering of industries in that way, without regard to economic conditions, is not a sound one.
Those are the words of the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's, speaking in this House yesterday. But let us look at the words to which he gave utterance when speaking on the Budget on May 18, 1920. His remarks will be found on page 2505 of Hansard of that year. Here is what he had to say then about infant industries:
Now, I would be always willing to help an infant industry if I were sure that when the infant grew up it would accept the full responsibility of manhood.
Further on he says:
I repeat, I would willingly help an infant industry, and as between protection and bounties, I think I would prefer the bounties.
I think all will agree that the views of the hon. member as expressed last year on the Budget, so far as new industries are concerned, are diametrically opposed to those which he now expresses. I have very
often heard hon. gentlemen who compose the Agrarian group say that they are against the policy of protection but that a still more vicious system is that of bounties; yet the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's stated last year in this House that he was in favour of bounties. Then he went on to point out-and I do not disagree with him-the beneficial results which accrued through the granting of bounties to the iron and steel industry by the government of which he was a member.
The policy of the party to which I have the honour to belong is well-known; under our young, able, progressive, and distinguished leader we stand four-square in this House and from the Atlantic to the Pacific on the policy of moderate protection. We believe in a policy that will not only keep all the industries going which we now have, but will induce new capital to come to this country. We favour the establishment of all the new industries that it is possible for us to induce to come here. They will be treated fairly. We will not give them a tariff "as high as Haman's gallows," nor do we stand for or believe in free trade. But we do believe in the policy of moderate protection, and so long as we occupy the seats of office we will do our very best to encourage new industries to come in. And I know of no country which offers the same golden opportunities to capital and to business men as this country in which we have the good fortune to live. Especially is that true with regard to my own province. We have a quiet, law-abiding people; we have a splendid labour market; we have good water-powers. While all the provinces of Canada offer excellent opportunities for the establishment of new industries, there is none better than the good old province of Quebec that I have the honour to represent in this House.
The hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's expressed regret that the Government had . accepted from Great Britain the free gift of one modern oil-burning light cruiser, two destroyers and two submarines. He went on to state that, in these days of peace and in view of the sentiment of the country in favour of economy-which he thought was not being exercised by the Government, but which is-we were not warranted in accepting these ships from the Mother Country. He stated that they were a white elephant on the hands of the Government and the people of Canada. I stated very plainly in this House last year, and I reiterate

the statement now, that we are not increasing, nor have we increased, the naval expenditure of this country by one copper. We are carrying out, as regards naval affairs, the policy that was placed upon the statute books of Canada by the passing of the Naval Service Act in the year 1910. What did we do? We said that it would not be right to continue to spend a sum of money equal to what we are spending now (two and a half million dollars) on old, obsolete ships-the old Niobe, thirty years of age, tied up to the dock at Halifax, not able to go to sea, costing the people of this country $450,000 a year; and the Rainbow, another ship twenty-five years old, also absolutely obsolete, tied up to the dock at Esquimalt, costing this country $275,000 a year. This Government saw fit to reorganize the naval service and we have done so; we have put it on an efficient basis; we have done away with 782 naval ratings and civilians that we did not need. We have done all without a single increase in expenditure. Where, then, does the "white elephant" come in? The "white elephant" would have come in if we had continued to spend the money, which we are now spending on a small efficient navy, by keeping these old obsolete ships at Halifax and Esquimalt. Therefore, while some hon. members think the naval question may be of political advantage throughout the country, I want to make it very clear this afternoon that we are carrying out the policy that was put on the statute book in 1910. We are not increasing the naval expenditure by one dollar. We have accepted, as a free gift from the Mother Country-and we thank her for it-the splendid new modern ships that she has given us. While our navy is small, and while I think we are spending a sufficient amount of money at the present time on the Naval Service, this Parliament and the people have the satisfaction of knowing that what we have is a credit to the country and efficient in every way, and that instead of our having a "white elephant" on our hands by accepting these ships, the reverse is the case. We would have had a "white elephant" on our hands had we carried on the inefficient, poor service that we had and the obsolete ships that were lying at the docks of Halifax and Esquimalt.
I will refer just for a moment to our Agrarian friends-I prefer the name "Agrarian"; I do not favour calling hon. members opposite the Farmers' party, because we are aware that the large major-

ity of farmers in this country from coast to coast do not share the radical ideas of hon. members of that party who sit in this House. Therefore, any remarks that I have to make this afternoon, I want it very clearly understood, apply to the radical Agrarian group that is in this House and the people, especially in the western provinces, who follow that group. The large majority of farmers of this country want stable government; they want a moderate policy of protection, and hon. members will ascertain that in a more convincing way when the general elections take place.


Mr. CAHILL:: When will they take
place?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I know the hon.
member is not in any hurry for the elections.


Frank S. Cahill: Yes, I am.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: If my hon. friend will possess his soul in patience,. I will promise him an election probably in the year 1923, and possibly in the fall of 1922.
I am glad to see the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar) in his seat. I always read his speeches with a great deal of interest and I entertain a very high regard for him. I have the famous policy of the Agrarian party in my hand, and I read there a severe condemnation of the protective tariff. The leader of the Agrarian party, of course, wants to wipe out the tariff; but for the information of hon. members and of the country, because the farmers of this country are taking a keen interest in public affairs now, and while they know what policy this party to the right of the Speaker stands for, they are anxious to know how the hon. member for Marquette proposes to make up the revenue of $163,000,000 that we now derive from customs duty, after he has wiped away every vestige of protection, I hope, when he speaks on the Budget in this House, he will explain how he proposes to raise that amount of revenue. It is only a business proposition that I am putting up to-him that he should give the House that information. I recognize that, a couple of years ago, he had some ways and means that he has now discarded entirely. We do not hear any more from the hon. member for Marquette about a land tax, neither do we hear anything from him about succession dues. Therefore, when he rises to speak, as he surely will, on this Budget, I know that he will endeavour to tell the

House how he proposes to get the revenue to take care of the expenditure of the country, and particularly the revenue of $163,000,000 at present derived from the customs tariff. When the hon. member for Marquette was speaking on the address in reply to the speech from the Throne, I heard him make a very extraordinary statement. He said that to his mind there was no reason why the manufacturers of Canada in like business should not compete with the manufacturers of the United States. Being a business man like himself, I was interested and somewhat surprised to hear him make that most extraordinary statement. The hon. member knows that if we had in this country a market of 110,000,000 people, if our turnover was as great as the turnover of similar industries in the United States, of course, Canadians would be able to compete successfully with our American neighbours. But the hon. member for Marquette must know that when an industry is in operation, the cost of production depends upon the turnover. Therefore, it is a very unfair statement to make that Canadian manufacturers, with a limited market, with keen competition, in a country with a population of less than 9,000,000 people and an output so much smaller than that of our American friends, should be able to compete with American manufacturers on even terms. The tariff policy for Canada is the one enunciated by the right hon. the Prime Minister. We want to maintain a moderate protective tariff. The United States since the Civil War has maintained, not a moderate protective tariff, but a very high protective tariff. On this side of the House we are not in favour of a high tariff, but we believe that to make Canada great, in agriculture, in mining, in finance, in manufacturing, and all the other vocations of life, we must maintain a moderate protective tariff in this country. That tariff is not intended solely for, and does not serve only, those who are engaged in dustrial life; it serves equally every citizen of Canada, no matter what his vocation in life may be.
I pass from our Agrarian friends to the hon. leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King). We have heard enunciated on more than one occasion the fiscal policy on which the hon. gentleman was elected leader of his party at the National Liberal Convention in this city in August, 1919, but for the sake of continuity in my remarks I crave the indulgence of the House while I place that fiscal policy on the pages of Hansard. It is as follows:
That the best interests of Canada demand that substantial reductions of the burdens of Customs taxation be made with a view to the accomplishing of two purposes of the highest importance: First: diminishing the very high cost of living which presses so severely on the masses of the people; Second: reducing the cost of the instruments of production in the industries based on the natural resources of the Dominion, the vigorous development of whidh is essential to the progress and prosperity of our country.
That, to these ends, wheat, wheat flour and all products of wheat; the principal articles of food; farm implements and machinery; farm tractors, milling, flour and saw-milll machinery and repair parts thereof; rough and partly dressed lumber; gasoline, illuminating, lubricating and fuel oils; nets, net-twines and fishermen's equipments; cement and fertilizers, should be free from Customs duties, as well as the raw material entering into the same.
That a revision downwards of the tariff should be made whereby substantial reductions should be effected in the duties on wearing tupparel and footwear, and on other articles of general consumption (other than luxuries), as well as on the raw material entering into the manufacture of the same.
That the British preference be increased to 50 per cent of the general tariff
And the Liberal Party hereby pledges itself to implement by legislation the provision of this resolution When returned to power.
I think it is only fair that when the hon. leader of the Opposition rises in his place in this House to speak on the Budget, he should tell us in very clear terms that he absolutely stands behind this platform on which he was elected. On this side of the House we also expect hon. gentlemen opposite to get up in turn and say that they stand for this fiscal policy that I have just read. Let us for a moment just look at what would happen if such a misfortune . occurred as hon. gentlemen opposite being returned to power. Business is extremely depressed at the present time.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I am glad, in a
way, to hear my hon. friends say, "hear, hear." There is a special reason for business being depressed at the present time. All business men know that we are now in this year 1921, for the first time in the readjustment period for business since the war. Every manufacturer, every wholesaler, every retailer, throughout this country has large stocks of raw material and finished goods on hand. These goods could he replaced to-day at half their original cost, and consequently business men are not going to make very much profit, if any at all, this year. Then the stocks which had become depleted throughout the world )iave been replenished, and as a consequence Canada, in common with all other nations



REVISED EDITION. COMMONS

[Stage Direction]
of the world, feels the depression through which we are passing at the present time. But we have this consolation in this country. Canada is standing this period of depression better than any other country that I know of. The United States is feeling it even more than Canada; the United Kingdom and all the other countries of Europe are feeling it more than we are. In this period of depression my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition and those who sit behind him say: We solemnly pledge that if we are returned to power we will do two things immediately-there will be a general revision of the present tariff, and we will increase the British preference from 33J to 50 per cent. I wonder how my hon. friend from Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe) is going to square himself with his electors on that policy?
Ernest Lapointe: Don't worry.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: The constituency
of Quebec East, which my hon. friend represents in this House, is teeming with boot and shoe factories. Now, one of the planks of the platform of the Liberal party which I have just read is that there shall be substantial reductions in the duties on footwear. Therefore, the boot and shoe manufacturers of Quebec East, along with the boot and shoe manufacturers of the rest of Canada, who are already suffering so much from business depression, would not only be placed in a very much worse position if hon. gentlemen opposite should reach the seats of power, but in my judgment, they would be put completely out of business.
Then, how would our great woollen and cotton manufacturers in the province of Quebec and the other provinces of Canada fare with a sweeping reduction of the present tariff and an increase in the British preference from. 33& to 50 per cent? When the leader of the Opposition went down to the city of Montreal, the commercial metropolis of Canada, he never said a word about this fiscal policy of his; I read his speech very, very carefully. He went down to a love-feast there, at which a great banquet was tendered to the ex-Prime Minister of Quebec, Sir Lomer Gouin, and all that the leader of the Opposition had to say on the tariff question was this-that he wanted a new representation in the House of Commons. I would have expected my hon. friend, speaking in the great manufacturing and commercial city of Montreal, to have said that the policy of the National Liberal and Conservative party of moderate protection was a false one, and that the policy

which I have read, which was adopted by the Liberal party in convention in this city in 1919, was the policy for this country. I would have expected him to say: When we get into power we will make sweeping reductions in the tariff, and increase the British preference to 50 per cent, and I will show you how that will increase the population of the city of Montreal and benefit the great manufacturing and commercial institutions of this city. But my hon. friend had nothing whatever to say about the tariff, except what I have stated. However, when he got to the sunny slopes of the Pacific he made quite a different speech. Speaking in the city of Victoria, on September 27, 1920, he said:
That brings me to the policy of the Liberal party as respects the revision of the tariff. We believe that the time has come, indeed, that it is alreaidy long passed, when a downward revision of the tariff is necessary. In this revision we believe should be substantial reductions of the duties on the necessities of life. In other words, on these articles which go to make the food, the clothing, the shelter of the Canadian people; that certain specific articles required for the purpose of consumption, and other articles essential to production, should be piaced upon the free (list.
That is the speech of the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King), when he was out in the West touring the Prairie Provinces, but it was not the speech which he delivered on the tariff question in the Peterborough election, or when he was in the city of Montreal.


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: May I ask from what paper my hon. friend is quoting?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I am sorry I have not the name of the paper from which I have read this extract, but I can quote another journal. My hon. friend wrote an article for Maclean's Magazine, published on January 15, 1921, stating thp same views in pretty nearly the same words. Now, I think.it is only fair that my protectionist friends from the province of Quebec should tell their constituencies and this House whether or not they endorse the new fiscal policy which is now proclaimed by the Liberal party. The hon. member for Waterloo North (Mr. Euler), went down to my city a few weeks ago, and in speaking before the Reform club, he came out flat-footed for the policy of protection; and, I believe, the hon. member for Lambton (Mr. Pardee), was down there last year and also delivered a protectionist speech. The hon. member for Maisonneuve - Gaspe (Mr. Lemieux), also makes protectionist

speeches. In view of these facts, I think it is only fair to their leader, and to the loyalty which I am sure they all bear him, that they should give him their united support on this policy and declare that they believe, not in the Laurier fiscal policy, but in the King policy; and in all their constituencies throughout the province of Quebec they should state what they are going to do in regard to the tariff. In this connection, I desire to offer my congratulations to the hon. member for St. Hya-cinthe-Rouville (Mr. Gauthier).


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Hon. gentlemen opposite laugh, but I want to say for the member for St. Hyacinthe-Rouville that he is more of a true Laurier Liberal than any of them.
Some hon. MEMBERS; Oh, oh.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: He stands by the principles of that great statesman, not only on * matters of fiscal policy, but also on questions connected with all the other old and well-known policies of the Liberal party. The hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Rouville, I say, is more of a true Laurier Liberal than hon. gentlemen who occupy seats opposite me now under their new leader. Why did the member for St. Hyacinthe-Rouville leave his party? The hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster), using his great imaginative powers, suggested that I had 'been fishing.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Well, let rpc say that I would have considered
4 p.m. it an honour had I been able to land such a splendid fish as the member for St. Hyacinthe-Rouville.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: My hon. friends opposite know perfectly well that the hon. member in question left them because he did not believe in this new fiscal policy. He knew that it was not the policy of the right hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier; he knew that it was not the policy of the member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding), who had been Minister of Finance for fifteen years. The member for St. Hyacinthe-Rouville, in his own eloquent way, informed us that when this celebrated convention was held in Ottawa in August, 1919, he disapproved of and dissented from the policy then laid down.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, no.
204i


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I am quite prepared to accept the words of the hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Rouville. That hon. gentleman left the present Liberal party because its fiscal policy is not the fiscal policy of the late Right Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier; it is a teetotally different policy, not only in regard to the tariff, but in a great many other ways; and if an hon. member in this House is conscientiously of the opinion that his old associates have renounced the policy upon which they were elected, and to which they adhered for fifteen years, while they were in power, surely in this free Parliament and country, no one can find fault with him for leaving the party, and tak ing up his stand in No Man's Land.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I am glad to find my hon. friends in such a jovial frame of mind. Now, for the first time since 1917, owing to the regrettable death of the late member for Yamaska, there is a vancancy in Quebec, that county is open. For the first time since 1917 the electors of the county of Yamaska, in the province of Quebec, are going to show what they think of the hon. leader of the Opposition and those who are behind him. They are going to register their votes as to whether or not they agree with that party's fiscal policy. I do not claim to be very much of a prophet-


Mr. DUFF:: No, that it right.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: -but I venture the assertion that on May 29-and I trust that the House will be in session at least until that time-hon. members opposite will not be as jubilant as they are to-day, unless all the information that reaches me is absolutely wrong.


An hon. MEMBER:: You are premature.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: If my hon. friends will just possess their souls in patience-


William Duff: Why do not you?


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: Any hon.
member who desires to interrupt the hon. member will please do the House the courtesy of rising in his place and asking permission to put any question he wishes to have answered.


Ernest Lapointe: May I ask the hon. gentleman a question? Is there a candidate in the county of Yamaska representing the Government?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Certainly, Mr. Mondou is the Government's candidate. Now, I know that the hon. member for Lunenburg (Mr. Duff) does not like to hear these truths about the province of Quebec. I have the honour to represent the province of Quebec in this House-*


William Duff: You do not do any such thing; you do not represent Quebec.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: If at this late date the member for Lunenburg does not know that the Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty) and myself, two ministers of the Crown, represent in this House the entire province of Quebec-


William Duff: No, sir; oh, no.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: -and not only the province of Quebec but the Dominion of Canada at large-


William Duff: Is that so?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: My hon. friend
seems to think that cabinet ministers are elected to represent merely the constituencies that return them to the House.


William Duff: Certainly.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Not at all; every minister of the Crown represents the Dominion as a whole, and if my hon. friend does not know that, I am very glad indeed to inform him now.


William Duff: The province of Quebec,
then, is poorly represented.


Georges Henri Boivin: Order. The hon. member can only ask a question witn the permission of the member who has the floor, any other utterances is an infringement of the rules of the House.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I was proceeding, Mr. Speaker, to say that although I speak the English tongue and my good friends opposite, who represent the province of Quebec in this House, speak the French language-


Mr. BUREAU:: We speak the English language also.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: -nevertheless, I have the same privileges on the floor of the House as they have, and when I come here I speak for the province of Quebec, which I have the honour to represent in this House. Hon. members from the province of Quebec have talked a great deal about the isolation of that province-they say the Government is isolated by reason of there being no representation from Quebec in the Cabinet. Well," I want to say, with a
|Mr. Lapointe.]
fairly good knowledge of the province, that the people of Quebec do not display any antagonism towards this Government and do not wish to isolate it. The only isolation that does exist is the political isolation, that exists here, the political "bloc" that now represents the province in this House. All the efforts of my hon. friends opposite are going to be concentrated on the maintenance of that "bloc." Read the speeches of hon. gentleman opposite who have been in Yamaska county recently. Not a word shall we find there about the fiscal policy, or the railway policy, or any of the big problems that are confronting Canada at the present time. No, their efforts are concentrated, as we all knew they would be, on the maintenance of the present "Liberal bloc." I will not read to the House what these hon. gentlemen are saying. I have always been opposed to saying anything that would hurt the feelings of any race or creed in Canada, and I am- going to continue that policy. I admire the French people, I admire their language and their religion, and while I am in public life I will never make a speech, either in this House or out of it, on racial or religious questions. If this Government cannot carry Yamaska county without raising the ghost of the late Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and talking about racial and religious questions then, as far as I am concerned, we are prepared to lose that county. But I want to say, Sir, that Quebec does not want any condition of isolation. The people of Quebec want their full representation in this Government and, using the words of the Prime Minister, when he went to Sherbrooke and the city of Montreal on a recent occasion. "We all hope that the day is near at hand when the old province of Quebec will have her full and her complete French representation in the Government of Canada."


Mr. VIEN:: After a general election.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: The feeling in
Quebec is changing, and my hon. friends opposite know it.


An hon. MEMBER:: So you say.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I had the honour of making a political tour with the Prime Minister through the beautiful Eastern Townships. He was enthusiastically received by huge crowds of people in every town he visited, including the city of Sherbrooke. Not only that, but the French-Canadian mayors of the various towns visited, in accordance with the customary

courtesy of the French people, not only gave him a most enthusiastic welcome but, everywhere he went, presented him with illuminated addresses in both English and French. In the drill hall in the city of Sherbrooke the Prime Minister was welcomed by a crowd of something like 7,000 people-the building was packed to the doors. Leaving that city and coming to my own city of Montreal a banquet was there tendered to the Prime Minister by the citizens generally of that commercial metropolis, and not by the members of any political party. Over 700 people crowded into the banqueting hall on that occasion, there was not even standing room left, and it was most gratifying to the Prime Minister and myself that the large majority of those in attendance were of the French-Canadian race. What does that mean? That means that any unfortunate feeling that may have been created during the stress of war has passed away. In the province of Quebec there are, of course, large numbers of Conservatives. The people of Quebec are a protectionist people, they do not believe in free trade, they do not believe in increasing the British preference to fifty per cent. They are intensely interested in stable government. They have a distinct leaning towards the party in power that stands for the policy of moderate protection; and difficult as the task may be in that province I can say, in all friendliness to my hon. friends opposite, that when the next general election is over there will be no repetition of the results of 1917-that out of 65 seats 62 Liberals were elected and only 3 members on this side of the House.


Mr. ARCHAMBAULT:: Let us have an election, then.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: My hon. friend
from Chambly-Vercheres will get an election in due time, and when that election is over there will be very much larger representation of good French Canadians from the province of Quebec on this side of the House than there is at the present time. To use the words of the hon. member for Red Deer my hon. friends opposite from the province of Quebec are something like Admiral Nelson-they always put -the glass to the blind eye. They fraternize one with the other and can see nothing but victory ahead for themselves-they can see nothing but the maintenance of this "Quebec bloc." One of the sheep has jumped over the walls of the pen and is wandering loose at the present time; in
spite of that however they are confident they can maintain the "Quebec bloc." As to that let me quote from the greatest French Canadian paper in the province of Quebec, a journal that is published and printed in my own city, La Presse.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Joseph Archambault: What was the
price of the sale?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I am very much
gratified to hear the derisive remarks that now come from hon. gentlemen opposite. For years and years nothing they could say was too good for La Presse. They now think we have bought that paper.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Let me say to
my hon. friends that such has not occurred. No influence, direct, or indirect has been brought to bear upon La Presse. On the contrary the astute proprietor of that journal sees the unfortunate condition of the province of Quiebec resulting from the maintenance of the policy of stupid isolation that my hon. friends opposite would like to see maintained, and so La Presse, with a daily circulation of over
140,000,	represents the true expression of opinion of the French Canadian people in the province of Quebec.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I will not read the whole of the editorial to which I have reference. Doubtless, as my hon. friends opposite used to take such great pleasure in reading La Presse in the fighting times when it was standing up for the Liberal party, I am sure they would like me to read the whole of the editorial. Now this is what La Presse says:
In view of these facts there can he but one logical conclusion :

Let us preserve an economic regime which has proved itself so splendidly beneficial, and let us continue protection which is the basis of that regime.
"La Presse" which, ever since its foundation, has never ceased to be the convinced and determined champion of the principle of protection, in the presence of such evident confirmation of the justness of its attitude, remains more than ever convinced that it is essential for the future of Canada to maintain this principle of protection as the basis of our tariff policy.
It is not at this time, when, owing to the universal upheaval caused by the war in the economic field, any error may have disastrous consequences for Canada, that one can reasonably think of abandoning a principle which offers such guarantees for the future. Let us not abandon realities for dreams.

Those opinions are the opinions of the majority of the people from the province from which I come-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: -and I want to say to hon. members who come from other parts of Canada that I am glad of this opportunity to exhibit to them this other picture from the province of Quebec, and to tell them something about Quebec which hon. members opposite would not deem it to be in their best interests to tell.


Mr. TRAHAN:: What was the date of
the article from which the minister quoted?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I can give that, I have it here.


An hon. MEMBER:: Read it in French.
>
Mr- BALLANTYNE: I can do that, too, if the hon. member wishes. The date of the issue of La Presse in which that editorial appeared was January 29, 1921.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I have only to state that I shall certainly register my vote against the milk-and-water amendment that has been moved by the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding), and I am sure all my colleagues will have very great pleasure in also voting against it. Let me repeat, the party to your right, Sir, has a clearly defined fiscal policy of moderate protection. And I hope that hon. gentlemen opposite will tell the House that they stand behind their leader and will support the fiscal policy on which he was elected.


Mr. MICHAEL CLARK (Red Deer) :: attitude upon that question. He understands the economics of the question just as well as I do, and I cannot understand his position when at one time he mourns thp excess of American imports and at another time says that we must have the foreign capital, which can only come into this country in the form of the imports which he mourns.
Well, what is the problem with which the nation is confronted at the present time? Briefly it is this: that after what my hon. friends opposite assert to have been well on to half a century of the so-called National Policy, in a country of unparalleled resources in extent and value, with only three people to the square mile, we are face to face with a national debt of $2,350,000,-000-largely due to the war, let me admit with the utmost frankness; it need not have been so big if the previous Finance Minister had taxed as my hon. friend is doing, but it is largely owing to the war, nevertheless;-we have a national railway system which showed a deficit of $70,000,000 last year; we have what I am afraid is an utterly unprofitable and losing mercantile marine which has swallowed millions upon millions of the money of the people of this country; our cities are crowded with unemployed, and they are most numerous in Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto, where the shipbuilding escapades of the Government were undertaken to cure unemployment; farm products have already declined to a non-paying basis; and our foreign commerce at the moment as well as our internal trade is declining at an alarming rate. That is the condition of the country, and it is a condition that should give all thoughtful citizens pause. But there is no pause to the Government, for their cure is "more National Policy," as I shall show in a minute. Well, on the ground of ordinary common sense, I should say that if a patient has had a certain treatment for forty-three years and at the end of that period shows this lamentable condition according to the statement of hon. gentlemen opposite, the country would be well advised in doing what I am quite sure it is going to do at the first opportunity-try a change of doctor and a change of medicine. I repeat that the prescription of hon. gentlemen opposite for this condition is more National Policy. It is true that ostensibly the Budget presents but few tariff changes. We are told that this is no time for a tariff revision. My right hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster) laboured this 
point very hard yesterday. I must confess that I could not see very much in the reasons he urged for this action. A simple answer to all he said would be: If it be not an afterthought to state that the tariff is not being revised because of the unstable conditions the world over, why did you have a tariff commission going from the Atlantic to the Pacific last year?-why the waste of money? If there was to be no tariff revision there surely should not have been a tariff commission last year. That is a simple answer, and I am very much afraid that the failure to revise the tariff at this session would get a truer, as it certainly would get a better, defence if my hon. friends based it not on the instability of conditions throughout the world but on the well-recognized instability of the Government and its majority.
But is it true that we have no revision? Mr. Speaker, I think not. The Budget gives a revision of the tariff, and a very serious revision upwards. In the first place, what does the one per cent extra on all imports amount to but a raising of the tariff? It is the same operation; call it what you like, it is an increase of the import duties on goods coming into the country, and on almost all goods. There are exceptions, but it relegates quite a large number of articles to the past, as regards the free list. It is an immense increase of the tariff burdens of the people of this country. In the second place, for all practical purposes, the revision, in accordance with exchange rates, in the method of collecting of duties is also a very substantial revision of the tariff upwards. Therefore, it is not a fact to say that we have no revision of the tariff in this Budget, we have a great increase of the tariff. Whether you call these taxes tariff or sales taxes, what the people of this country are concerned to know is the real nature of these taxes and their effect upon the national disease, as I call it, which I venture to describe to this House in simple terms which no one can contradict. Whatever we may call the taxes upon which my hon. friend relies largely for his revenue, they are all taxes upon consumable commodities used by the people in this country. Let there be no mistake about that; that whether they are what are commonly called tariffs, or an increase of import sales taxes, or sales taxes imposed upon goods manufactured in the country, they are all of them taxes upon consumable commodities.

I think that a fourth-form school boy cannot fail to follow the simple process of reasoning by which the inevitable and undoubted elfect of these taxes can be worked out. What is the effect of taxes upon consumable commodities? Its first and immediate effect is to raise the price of the commodity. But if it raises the price, what must of necessity be its next effect? Supposing the article in question to be a suit of clothes; supposing that before these taxes are imposed, the money that any given consumer has to spend on suits of clothes is $100-that that is what his personal Budget will allow him to spend upon clothes. If clothes could be bought for $33 a suit, clearly he could buy three suits with the $100; but if the price were by any chance raised to $50, and he had only $100 to spend upon suits, just as clearly he could buy only two suits. Therefore, the first effect of a tax upon consumable commodities for people of limited income-and that means the vast majority of the people of this country-is to increase the price; and the second, inevitably, is to limit the consumption. These are the elements of political economy which have been taught by these supposedly "obsolete" teachers for at least a century and a half. What follows inevitably on decreased consumption is decreased production. Increase the price of the consumable commodity and you decrease the consumption; decrease the consumption and you decrease the production; and if you decrease the production, you lessen the work of the workmen of the country, you increase unemployment. That is what my hon. friend confessed, in the middle of the fiscal year, that his taxes of a year ago did; it was what he was told at the time they would do, and to that extent the Government of the day in this country, where our economic problem is so simple, are, on account of their fiscal policy, as responsible for a large measure of unemployment as if they had ordered a lockout of the workmen. That is the nature of all these taxes, and that is the method of their operation.
I want to go a little further in my opposition to them and to say that taxes of this kind, whether they are tariff taxes or sales taxes, break the three main principles of taxation which all political economists of note have given their adherence to as sound principles. Taxes, in the first place, should be collected as much as possible in proportion to the ability of the taxpayer to pay. That is simple common
sense. Any one who thinks for a moment will come inevitably to the conclusion that a workman who has to calculate very carefully with his wife on a Saturday night how his week's wages will provide the absolute necessaries of life for himself, his wife and his children, is not a very fit subject for heavy taxes. But these taxes place just as big a burden upon a navvy as they do upon a millionaire. They put a bigger burden upon the navvy than upon the millionaire along many lines, because the navvy wants more clothes in the hard work that he does than the millionaire. As a rule, the navvy has a bigger family than the millionaire, and he is taxed upon the articles of clothing worn not only by himself but by every member of his family down to the baby in its long clothes and its little woollen boots.
The second principle of taxation is that all taxes should be certain, and not arbitrary. If you have an income and pay an income tax, the tax is certain as to time, amount and place, according to the size of your income. But these indirect taxes are absolutely arbitrary. If you buy, you pay, and if you do not buy, you do not pay. In other words, the open-handed, free spender pays taxation; the stingy man who puts his money in the bank gets off paying taxes as regards indirect taxation to the extent that he is stingy. I do not object to any man saving, but I think we ought to have a method of taxation that takes a fair proportion of his savings for the state. Taxes ought to take out and keep out of the pockets of the taxpayer as little as possible beyond what is necessary to carry on the government of the country. In the case of all direct taxation, that is the result; for every dollar collected by income tax or succession duties goes to the Government except a few cents for expenditure in connection with the collection. But in the case of a tariff, we take two, three, four times as much from the taxpayers as the Government gets, the two hundred or three hundred extra per cent going into the pockets of those who are protected under a tariff. That, briefly, is what I have to say about the defects of the Budget so far as I see them.	*
I have said that a clear issue is raised by the Budget, on the one hand, and the amendment on the other. I notice that my hon friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster) is a little doubtful about the kind of support the amendment is likely to get on this side of the House. I think he expressed a doubt as to how far my hon. friend from
i

North Cape Breton and Victoria (Mr. McKenzie) and I could sail in the same boat. Well, in regard to that, Mr. Speaker, I should just like to say that we sailed in the same boat on reciprocity ten years ago, and we shall sail in the same boat on this amendment. I do not care to speculate any further than the present moment in my history and the history of my hon. friend. But why should the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce see such a difficulty in reconciling what he considers moderate divergencies of opinion? I recall that ten years ago this spring, he delivered a speech in the reciprocity debate, and was immediately followed, in a contrary sense, by the present Minister of Militia (Mr. Guthrie); but they now seem to sit very comfortably in the same Cabinet so far as their personal relations are concerned, though I am bound to say that external evidences from time to time show that they are both afflicted with a similar apprehension as to the results in an election which now cannot long be postponed. A more recent case of reconciliation than that occurs to me. My right hon. friend the Prime Minister, with what I am sure is a grim sense of humour which he manages' to hide most of the time-for he is a very serious-minded man-when he went west took with him my hon. friend the Minister of Immigration and Colonization (Mr. Calder), and he took him west for the very specific purpose of making him toe the line on tariff matters-and he did some line toeing, all right. No doubt it was not difficult, because he saw a light, either before the journey or on the journey. The Prime Minister got the truth into him, and he toed the mark. I have an opinion, Mr. Speaker, that he did not see much light. What really happened to him was that he was led into a swamp by a fire-fly. But the fact that the Minister of Immigration and Colonization met with an accident of that kind furnishes a very small obstacle in the way of an energetic Highland Scotchman nimbly jumping into the light of the sun; and while I cannot congratulate the Minister of Immigration and Colonization, I congratulate myself and my friend hon. (Mr. McKenzie) that for the moment at any rate we are getting along all right. This is a first-rate amendment, and I think the betting is good that my hon. friend from North Cape Breton and Victoria will support it.	%
Now I want to examine the amendment just a little, because with the Budget it raises, as I say, a very distinct issue for [ Mr. M. Clark.]
the people of this country. My right hon. friend the Prime Minister, with a courage and honesty which I think has done a great service to the public life of Canada, has left the people in no doubt as to where he stands on fiscal matters. He stands on the principle of protection. With equal benefit to honest politics in this country, an amendment has been produced on this Budget which is in disagreement with the principle of protection. It challenges the principle of protection.


Mr. CURRIE:: Hear, hear.


Arthur Meighen: There are no " hear, hears " opposite.


Michael Clark: But the
amendment is there, and it challenges the principle of protection.


Arthur Meighen: Wait till you hear
what they say.


Michael Clark: It cannot be otherwise coming from an Opposition to this Government, because, as I said in a previous debate this session, the principle of protection is typical Toryism. What is the principle of protection? Stated briefly, it is that the consumers of the country without exception should be taxed for the building up in a specific case of a single industry. That is most specific Toryism, according to the whole history of- the creed. Why, when the name Liberal was first introduced into the politics of the Old Country, what were the political conflicts of the time? It was about the year 1828 when the term was first applied to the party of progress in the Old Country. And what was happening at that time? The Tory party was engaged in its congenial occupation of defending the privileges of the few and resisting the rights of the many. In the year 1828 the Test and Corporation Acts were repealed. These Acts, which had stood for generations upon the statute books of Great Britain, declared that men should not be members of corporations or attend the public universities unless they were members of a given church, and that church the Church of England. But progressive thought said: You have no right to put disabilities upon the great masses of people who do not think with you religiously. And the Test and Corporation Acts were repealed. In the next year the fight was on Catholic Emancipation. It is well to go back to the old history books occasionally just to know what the fight has been for progress in this world. In 1829 Catholic Emancipation

was carried in the Old Country. It is difficult to believe that before that time, less than one hundred years ago, the people of the dominant church and the dominant party had said that no man who was a Catholic should have civil rights in Great Britain.


Joseph Archambault: That is Toryism.


Michael Clark: That was
Toryism in 1829.


John Allister Currie: It was a Tory Government that repealed that Act. Yes, it was. What are you talking about?


Michael Clark: It was a
Tory leader that repealed the Corn laws against the votes of his own party. If my hon. friend wants to stand on that ground, he will take political kudos out of the fact that he himself was elected in the year 1911 for refusing free wheat, because afterwards his leader gave free wheat. The people who carry reforms are not the people who come in at the finish when popular opinion can no longer be resisted, but the people from generation to generation who fight for them against the Tories. Before the year 1832 there were boroughs in England with five people electing two members to Parliament, at the dictation of a duke. Liberal and progressive thought said: This is an iniquity; we will have a Reform Bill. And they carried a Reform Bill against the Tories of that day. In 1846, it is true, Sir Robert Peel carried the repeal of the Corn laws, but in doing it he paid a tribute to Cobden, which I put on Hansard two years ago, as magnificent as a magnanimous man can pay to the real reformer in the case. I do not know whether such a magnanimous tribute is lost or not on my hon. friend from North Simcoe (Mr. Currie). In 1867, against the determined resistance of Toryism, or rather of a Tory leader, the workingmen in the boroughs of England were given the vote. Again, my hon. friend would claim that in history it was the Tories that fought for it. Every one knows that the opposite is the truth; but that is the general character of my hon. friend's beliefs. In 1885, the franchise was extended to people of the counties, through the same progressive and liberal influences; and in 1892, incomparably the greatest statesman of the nineteenth century would have saved us from the horrors we meet with in reading our papers morning by morning, in connection with Ireland, by giving a moderate degree of Home Rule to that distracted land. That the policy was right is conceded to-day by those who opposed it at the time. There has been no finer tribute to a dead statesman than was uttered by Lord Curzon, a blue blood of the blue bloods, a Tory of the Tories, when he rose the other day in his place in the House of Lords and said: "I am afraid Your Lordships' House was not wise in regard to previous Home Rule Bills." There is something pathetic about historic Toryism, Mr. Speaker. It is always dying in the last ditch for a forlorn hope, and that is what is being done, I am sorry to say, by one who should be broader at his time of life in regard to this principle of extreme protection in Canada. This is regrettable; it is pathetic to see an antediluvian at 45 years of age. I have said this much in illustration of what Toryism is, and what Protection is; they are interchangeable so far as fiscal matters are concerned. Toryism is always looking after God's chosen few-and they are the few. On the tariff, your typical Tory in Canada says: "Wheat, of course, is the article you produce in abundance, and it would pay the. national debt; but in my riding they grow tomatoes." And even my hon. friend the Minister of Finance gave an illustration of Toryism. He said that butter was the thing. But we shall not pay our national debt by exports of butter and tomatoes; we cannot pay the national debt with surplus tomatoes and surplus butter. Yet that is the attitude of Toryism; look after the tomatoes, never mind the abundant wealth of wheat and cattle produced on your boundless acres in Western Canada.
There are three great needs, in my judgment, for this country at the present time,-and I am avoiding, I think every one will admit who listens to me, the party talk that has somewhat prominently characterized the speeches which I have heard in this debate since the first two were delivered. The first great and urgent need of this country at the present moment is to increase its trade. Now, I know that my hon. friend the Minister of Finance has said that a big trade is not always characterized by prosperity, or words to that effect. I do not want to misrepresent him. He said he would not base too strong an argument for the profitableness of trade merely on its bulk. Well, I think my hon. friend is wrong in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, and I am not sure that the hundredth would not be doubtful. May I

give my hon. friend a simple illustration of the point? Why were we prosperous in this country during the war? Not because men were killing one another. We were prosperous because we had a big international trade; that was undoubtedly the source of our prosperity. We were producing tremendous surpluses under the extreme pressure of the needs of the war, and we had a big international trade and were prosperous, beyond the dreams of avarice in some cases. And so it has always been. Does my hon. friend contend that little business is a sign of prosperity, whether it be a firm or a nation in question? As a rule, big business means great prosperity, and we like business to be good. Why, the manufacturers of Eastern Canada at this moment know which 5 p.m. side their bread is buttered on, and they are looking now to the West and wondering how much acreage is going to be placed under cultivation this year. Why? Because they know that a big production, followed by a big sale of western wheat, means prosperity for the whole country. And there is no gainsaying that, as a general principle. So that, as I say, increased trade, and especially increased foreign trade, is the first great need of Canada at the present time.
Now, my hon. friend mentioned the home market in that connection; that was where he got the butter argument. He told us about our eating most of our butter at home. Well, if we had no market abroad, poverty would accompany our efforts, and not prosperity. What is the use of talking to the farmers of Canada about the home market? We produce in Western Canada, some years, 300,000,000 bushels of wheat, of which we consume 60,000,000. What would you do with the surplus 240,000,000 bushels if you had no foreign market? How would you dispose of that surplus if you did not take proper steps to get it into the markets of the world? In New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island they grow the finest potatoes in the world, but they use only five per cent of their own product, and even the people of York-Sunbury cannot get up in the night and eat potatoes when they are electioneering. These provinces use only five per cent of their own product, and it is absolutely vital to their interests that ever possible step should be taken to get the markets of New England for their surplus potatoes. That is common sense. Over the rest of Canada, nearly everywhere, the people grow potatoes for their own use, and that is not a TMr. M. Clark.]
particularly difficult trick. Even I, who am a very "mixed farmer" to begin with, made a success of potato growing from the start, and I grow a surplus every year to seed the garden with the next year. But in , these provinces they grow largely in excess of their consumption and their prosperity depends absolutely upon disposing profitably of that surplus. And that is another excellent illustration of the value of the reciprocity pact upon which we voted the other day. I do not want to labour that point further.


John Allister Currie: Hear, hear.


Michael Clark: But in regard to some of my hearers, it might be possible to get a simple figure into their heads, and I should like to tell my hon. friend from North Simcoe that if he is not, I am, alarmed by the fact that in the month of March our foreign trade declined in this country by nearly $100,000,000. Now, it makes a very great difference to this nation at the present moment, in the face of a fact like that, whether our policy is directed to increasing our foreign trade or decreasing it. I have proved, by quotations from the fathers that appeal to the common sense of every man who gives an unbiased attention to what I said, that the effect of the Government's taxes is to decrease consumption, to decrease production, and they will inevitably decrease foreign trade also; and I shall support the amendment because in my humble judgment it points the road to an exactly opposite line of policy.
The second great need of our people at the present time is to reduce the cost of living-we are all agreed about that. I know my hon. friend the Minister of Militia said, in what I think was a weak moment the other night, that a cheap country is not a good country to live in. Well that is all very well-


Arthur Meighen: Did my hon. friend,
in giving his figures of the reduction of the March trade, mean to say that our trade in March this year was one hundred millions less than our trade last year?


Michael Clark: I did.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman is aware that our duty this year is 7i per cent less than it was last year.


Michael Clark: The duty?


Arthur Meighen: The tariff is 7i per
cent less this year than last year.


Michael Clark: What has
that to do with the case? I was not talking

about duties, I was talking about the total trade.


Arthur Meighen: Would it not indicate that we would not increase our trade by reducing the tariff still further?


Michael Clark: Of course the reduction of a tariff is not an act of magic. It takes a little time to go into operation, it takes a little time to have effect.


Arthur Meighen: It has been in operation a year.


Michael Clark: Well my hon. friend can take what consolation he likes from that fact. Would he argue that the raising of a tariff increases foreign trade?
Mr.. MEIGHEN: I will argue that point when I get up, but in the meantime I would like to hear how the hon. gentleman explains his argument?


Michael Clark: It is so simple of explanation that I should not think my hon. friend requires any further statement.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Michael Clark: Well, if my right hon. friend really wants information upon this subject-and he did most sadly a year ago-will he seriously contend that the commercial position of Great Britain at the present moment is to be compared with the commercial position of Canada in regard to foreign commerce?


Arthur Meighen: As to that-


Michael Clark: Let me finish my point, my right hon. friend will have a chance to speak later.


Arthur Meighen: I thought my hon.
friend asked me a question.


Michael Clark: If I asked a question I apologize to the Speaker for breaking the rules of the House, because when my right hon. friend gets up to answer the question he is out of order. It is a common form of debate, however, to put a question that does not require an immediate answer.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Michael Clark: If my right hon. friend wants information in the form of a statement, instead of in the form of a question, let me tell him that I am examining into the effects of a tariff upon the foreign trade of a nation.


Arthur Meighen: Well, what about the British tariff?


Michael Clark: Last year
Britain's trade doubled the trade of the year before. In the month of March Canada's trade fell by $100,000,000 or nearly so.


Arthur Meighen: And the British tariff was higher than it was the year before.


Michael Clark: That is not the case.


Arthur Meighen: That is the case.


Michael Clark: My right hon. friend is extremely fond of splitting hairs-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Michael Clark: -and handing the other fellow the smaller part of the hair. He is so fond of the operation that he occasionally expends an enormous amount of strength in bringing his knife down where there is not a hair at all. If my right hon. friend wants further arguments about Britain he can have them to his heart's content; but I am here to say that the facts of history prove that a lower tariff makes for increased trade, other things being equal. My right hon. friend in his interruption is prepared to set up on a smaller scale exactly the class of argument which got him the laughter and derision of every trained economist in Britain last summer. He founded his case upon the figures of the war and the period immediately after it, and he stood before the world declaring that Britain's fiscal policy had broken down and she had lost her supremacy. She exported just about double last year that she did the year before- just about double. Is that a sign of lost supremacy?


Arthur Meighen: Compare with other
countries.


Michael Clark: Compare her with other countries? Canada's trade in the last month of the same fiscal year dropped by $100,000,000, and it is notorious that the United States is going back in the same ratio and at the same extent. Everybody knows that United States exports are falling off by leaps and bounds.


John Allister Currie: What about the present
British exports?


Michael Clark: That is a
fact, and there is no gainsaying the fact.


John Allister Currie: Let me ask my hon.
friend a question.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Sit down.



QOMMONS

Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


John Allister Currie: What about the drop in
British exports?


Arthur Meighen: Will the hon. 'gentleman-


Michael Clark: Well, really-


Arthur Meighen: Will the hon. gentleman please now compare British exports for March this year with British exports for March a year ago?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: That is fair.


Michael Clark: My right hon. friend must take such figures as I have before me.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh,


Michael Clark: Does my right hon. friend wish to Contradict the figures I have given him?


Arthur Meighen: Yes, I will give my
hon. friend this:	Our exports-


Michael Clark: Well now, Mr. Speaker-


John Allister Currie: Let us have the figures.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Michael Clark: Oh, it is an excellent method, the Socratic method, and I have no reason to fear it at all. However superior my right hon. friend may be as a debater he is so much inferior in his case he is sure to lose it.


John Allister Currie: Give us the British
figures.


Michael Clark: I think possibly a good position to leave it at the present moment is-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Michael Clark: A good position to leave it at the present moment is just this, where I left my right hon. friend last summer: I left him up against the facts for nine months and his case went out from beneath him. And if I understand him as indicating a wish to contradict my statement-when I say that a lower tariff will make for higher trade and that his policy will decrease trade-then I would advise him to wait for the figures nine months hence. I trust, for the sake of our common country, I am wrong; but if there was any betting in the case I' am afraid that, month by month, my right hon. friend will repent his present attitude. A tariff restricts trade. Why, his nearest 
neighbour in the House (Sir George Foster) who is nearly twice his age and has studied economics all his life-said here once, with the accord of everybody in the chamber, "Of course a tariff-every tariff-must to a certain extent restrict trade." That is what it is put on for. It is to keep the other stuff out so, that the few protected individuals inside the tariff wall can rook the consumer. If a protective tariff did not restrict trade and prevent imports what would be the earthly good of it for building up industries?
Now, I was proceeding, when we had this diversion, to say that the next great need of the moment is to decrease the cost of living. I had got so far as quoting my hon. friend the Minister of Militia as one of the few people who do not believe that, because he said in this House the other evening, that a cheap country is not a good country to live in: Well, I am perfectly persuaded that nine out of ten people in Canada at the present time could do if Canada was just a little cheaper country to live in than it is. If I am not right in that supposition, why have we heard so much about the high cost of living in the past seven years? Why have we carefully scanned the paragraphs in our papers which tell us that it has gone up by a small percentage or down by a small percentage? I will tell my hon. friend the Minister of Militia why those figures have been scanned by the rank and file of the people of this country with earnestness and anxiety: they have been scanned in this way because nine out of ten of the people have felt the cost of living so badly that they have had to calculate very carefully to make ends meet and to get the necessities of life for those who are near and dear to them. It is abject nonsense to say that a dear country is a good country to live in. We have all been wanting to reduce the cost of living. It is absolutely as certain as anything can be-and again my right hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce will be my authority-that a tariff increases the price of an article to just about the amount of the tariff. As the amendment proposes to reduce the tariff, in my judgment and in the judgment of every considerable economist who ever lived, you would by reducing the tariff reduce the price of commodities. On this ground also I shall vote for the amendment.
Now I come to the third point. The great need of this country is to build up its industries, and on the principles laid

down so eloquently and so lucidly by my hon. friend from Shelburne and Queen's,
I shall support the amendment, because, little as hon. gentlemen opposite may think so, the amendment's policy will build up the general industry of Canada mpch faster than the policy of the Government.
I see smiles of some doubt when I make a statement of that kind. A great deal of nonsense passes for sense in this world. Binder twine has been free in this country for twenty-three years. That is something the Liberal Government did, anyway. What was the effect upon the industry in Canada? Within that twenty-three years a successful binder twine factory has been established in Welland by an American firm.


John Allister Currie: An American trust.


Michael Clark: My hon. friend can call it just what he likes. I call it a firm. It is a branch of an American firm which has established at Welland under absolute free trade a successful binder twine factory. Let me just pause at this point to intimate that that single fact casts grave doubt upon the only argument that had a semblance of strength in it that I ever heard of for a protective tariff as against the States,-that the tariff is what pulls, so to speak, the factories over-from America to this side. It could not be the tariff in the binder twine case at Welland because there has not been a tariff on binder twine since that factory was founded there. There is another factory making binder twine in which I am more interested as a good Canadian than I am in the Welland factory.


Mr. HAY:: Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order, sit down.
An hon. MEMBER; He has a right to ask a question.


Michael Clark: In Brantford there is a firm called the Brantford Cordage Company. It makes rope, upon which there is a duty, but it also makes binder twine. I take more interest in that firm than in the other on purely national and patriotic grounds. The manager is a born Canadian, and he has established a splendid business there. When the gentleman from whom I get my information visited the factory the other day they were engaged in filling an order for Dublin, in Ireland. This firm, operating without a protective tariff so far as binder twine goes, has sent shipments to the United
States, to the Argentine, to Tunis in North Africa, to South Africa and to Siberia. Now, if that happened in regard to binder twine there, the onus of proving that industries are built up by a tariff is entirely on the shoulders of hon. gentlemen opposite. There are industries and industries in this country.


Thomas Hay: Mr. Speaker-


Michael Clark: Mr. Speaker,
I have been interrupted a good deal and I have very great consideration for whoever is to follow me. However, as my hon. friend from Selkirk (Mr. Hay) has risen I will be very glad to hear what se says.


Thomas Hay: The question I should like to ask the hon. gentleman is this: Has the establishment of an American binder twine factory in Welland cheapened binder twine to the farmers of Canada?


Michael Clark: My hon.
friend's question is really an argument, Mr. Speaker. I am discussing the effect of a tariff upon the building up of industries. My hon. friend understands that. I think that binder twine has been cheapened to the farmer. But that is not what I am dealing with. My hon. friend asks the question for the obvious purpose of making an argument. That sort of question is not permissible in ordinary parliamentary debate. There is nothing in the question. My hon. friend possibly is getting information that he did not have before on the question which I am raising, that the industries of a country generally are not built up by tariffs, but are retarded. What is meant by "industries"? Are railways "industries"? Has the National railway proceeded to enormous success under the protective tariff? It has been under the National Policy. What has that policy done for the railways of this country? What has it done for our shipbuilding?-is not that an "industry"? What has it done for the farming industry? Obviously nothing, because in their great bulk farmers cannot be protected. There is the iniquity and the injustice of the wohle thing as applied to the farming population. Protection is money help; and when you help one industry with money it is a very simple conclusion that the money must come from somewhere, and agriculture bears the entire burden.


John Allister Currie: What about the Canadian Pacific railway, then?


Michael Clark: The Canadian Pacific railway was given the earth to

build itself with. I am going to give my hon. friend, if I may be allowed to pursue my argument, some more facts about Canada. I was talking with a publicist the other day, a journalist of great repute, who knew Almonte very well in 1868. They have some woollen manufactures in Almonte. My friend, who knew it then and knows it now, and is a man with acute powers of observation, tells me that the woollen factories of Almonte were more prosperous in 1868 than they are to-day. I had confirmation of that from a gentleman who called on me recently to speak at Almonte. I asked him; How are your woollen factories? He answered:	Very
depressed. I was talking to a New Bruns-wicker of the highest intelligence and with a splendid memory, who told me that over forty years ago there were in the city of St. John thriving boot and shoe industries; there is not a boot or shoe made there to-day. What has the National Policy done for the boot and shoe industries of St. John? The onus of proof about this industry building all rests upon the shoulders of gentlemen opposite. What is the condition of your manufactures to-day? How many of them are depending on banks at this moment to hold them up? That is not the kind of industry you want to build up. Build them under freedom and they will stand on their own feet and be their own strength the way agriculture is bound to do. I have frequently given the figures as to Britain's manufactures. The broad truth is that Britain neved had any manufactures worth the name until she adopted free trade, her figures in manufacturing exports were infinitesimal; to-day they are the wonder of the world. These are the facts about Canada and the facts about the Old Country. For years hon. gentlemen did not mind my talking in this way, when I was the only man in the country who believed it, but when they know that there will be more believing it than not believing it at the next general election they commence to show a little temper in this business. I am very glad to see it, though what this country wants even more than the things I am dealing with is a change of government.
We have for forty years-
Mr. CURRIE; Why not free trade?
Mr. CLARK (Red Deer) ; I will tell my hon. friend about free trade in a minute. We have for over forty years pursued an absolutely wrong policy in Canada in re-

gard to the building of industries and in regard to the building of anything else. There was a Chinaman called Mencius who lived four hundred years before Christ. He was the grandson of Confucius, and he brought a simple figure before his fellow countrymen which only needs to be repeated to impress itself upon the intellect on any hon. gentleman in this House. Mencius said that the industries of a country may be likened to a tree of which agriculture is the stem or bole and the other industries of the country the branches. Now, that old Chink knew more about political econoniy than all the gentlemen opposite put together.


John Allister Currie: Mr. Speaker-


Michael Clark: I will finish my sentence. For the benefit of my hon. friend I will repeat the first part of it- that old Chink knew more about political economy than my hon. friend-


John Allister Currie: Mr. Speaker, I object-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


John Allister Currie: Well, he said-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Sit down.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Mr. SPEAKER:: The hon. member for North Simcoe (Mr. Currie) must know the rule which requires a member to take his seat when the Speaker rises.


John Allister Currie: The hon. gentleman is asking a question.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The hon. member for Red Deer has already indicated that he does not desire to be interrupted.


John Allister Currie: Doesn't he want an
answer?


Michael Clark: My hon.
friend is wrong in thinking that I asked him a question; there are some quarters to which I would never go for lessons in political economy. I was saying there was a Chinaman called Mencius who said that the industries of a country might be compared to a tree of which agriculture is the stem or bole and of which the other industries are the branches. Every Canadian on the land and almost every Canadian outside the benches opposite knows that that is true, because our forefathers were all farmers.


John Allister Currie: 

REVISED EDITION. COMMONS

[Stage Direction]
Queen's (Mr. Fielding) indicated. I have a little sympathy with those eleven gentlemen, for my right hon. friend has dragged those victims, so to speak, throughout the whole country and has trotted them out on every platform as evidences of his fiscal earnestness along the line of direct taxation.
Let me give a single figure more if I may, in support of my contention that our record in the economic field is not equal to the sacrifices of our soldiers. Great Britain raised last year, largely by direct taxation, $7,250,000,000.	Canada raised,
in round figures, $432,000,000. A simple calculation will reveal that, in this country, one-fifth of the population of Britain raised only one-seventeepth of the revenue that was raised in Britain. That going does not make me very proud as a Canadian. The word we all used in the war was: "We are out to fight Germany to the last man and the last dollar." The last man was forthcoming*, voluntarily, in most cases, and he gave not only his last dollar but himself. But we are far from collecting the last dollar or as many dollars as we should do by direct taxation in this country. Let me put that figure in another way. If my hon. friend had gathered, in proportion to population, from the people of Canada as much revenue as was gathered in Great Britain last year, his revenue would be $1,200,000,000. That would make him a little more comfortable about the future than he is at the present moment, in spite of the showing that he has made. My hon. friend could cut a third off that revenue and he would still have a revenue of $800,000,000. He could then meet all the national responsibilities fully and freely and set aside a substantial portion of his income for immediately dealing with the national debt. I have yet to learn that a Canadian is only two-thirds of a Britisher. Why, in every respect in which he has been tested, he is a little over one hundred per cent. Our people in war, in giving, were magnificent. Look at the huge sums that have been left in the hands of the Patriotic Fund and the Red Cross Society for revenue. I speak earnestly on this subject, because, I repeat, we have a great record to live up to, we have a great record of sacrifice and service that we ought to reproduce in our civil life until we have qualified for the moral companionship of those who have died for the country.
I am opposed to this Budget, because its extra burdens, like all its burdens, will

fall, not chiefly upon the rich and the well-to-do, but upon the great masses of the people who have enough to do to make ends meet. The burden of this Budget will fall, first and foremost, upon the returned *men. It will fall especially upon returned men who have taken advantage of the Soldier Settlement Act to settle-upon the land. I told my right hon. friend when he was taking the Soldier Settlement Act through this House that if he settled thousands of returned men upon the land and did not alter his fiscal policy in such a manner as to make it more profitable to farm, what he was doing amounted to a national crime. That is what has come about. There are in Western Canada returned men who, a little over a year ago, gave $1.25 a bushel for seed oats, and in some districts they cannot sell the product to-day at ten cents a bushel.
The Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Ballantyne), in the speech which he delivered this afternoon, talked about boots and shoes, and evidently, he wanted to arouse a little danger to the hon. member for Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe) on the part of the boot and shoe industry. What does my hon. friend think of the hide industry? I heard from a farmer, a near relative of mine, the other day, that he sold, in Western Canada, two hides weighing 129 pounds, and he took home the magnificent sum of $1.29; he got a cent a pound for the hides. You cannot get a pair of boots under ten dollars,-I am sorry to say that I am standing in a ten-dollar pair at this moment, and on my farm I would need to skin sixteen full-sized cattle to buy these boots with the hides. I was telling this story to a number of Britishers, and some of them good free traders, in St. Thomas a week ago Sunday, and they said: "It is worse than that here; there was a farmer who brought a hide in the other day, and he could buy only a pair of laces with the proceeds. Yet my hon. friend (Mr. Ballantyne), who is a good stalwart Canadian in many ways and for whom I have a great admiration,-if he had only kept out of politics and especially out of a merchant marine, he was all right-pleads in this House for a duty to help manufacturers of boots and shoes who can get hides for next to nothing and can surely get the leather made out of hides for almost next to nothing, especially when he knows that for the last eight years the boot and shoe industries of Canada have had, not only a huge protection in their home market, but a free entrance

into the United States, because since Mr. Wilson came into power, there has been no duty on boots and shoes in that country.
This burden will fall upon the returned men; it will fall mainly upon the labouring men of the country, the men who always have to calculate earefully to make their income cover their expenditure; it will fall upon the farmers of this country, and it will fall upon the women of the country who sewed and knitted in the war until their eyes were sore with sewing and knitting at one time and with weeping for their lost ones at another. That is why I object to this Budget, because its tariff burdens fall in the main on the rank and file, on the toiling masses, male and female, of this country, and not where they should fall, upon the shoulders of the wealthy who are best able to bear them. Consumption is not the proper thing to tax; consumable commodities are not the proper things to tax. The proper thing to tax is wealth. Wealth is what should be taxed; it is the one place you are sure to get money, and every just and righteous principle demands that sooner or later we shall bring down direct and not indirect taxation.
This is a reactionary Budget. But I have faith in Canada, absolute faith in Canada. She will look after her fiscal matters, and all her other matters. Her record in the war is one which cannot be blotted out. Her history up to date is a glorious one, and her possibilities are practically unlimited. When I stand on my western farm, Mr. Speaker, I sometimes look, as I can look, to the white-topped Rockies, emblems of strength and beauty, and my imagination goes beyond them to the shores of the Pacific, kissed with the warm western winds and lapped with the warm western waves, and I think of the possibilities of almost unlimited commerce with the Orient. Then I look east across the prairies, where we can grow unlimited golden grain, down to Ontario and Quebec with their magnificent material equipment, their history, their traditions-and their feuds, too often unworthy, and would to God that where they are unworthy they should die;- across these I look, and across the Maritime Provinces to the Atlantic where we have a chance of trading with the Old World, and I have unlimited confidence in Canada. There is one obstacle at the present moment in the way of her making a progress which has never been equalled in the world before, and that obstacle she will 2051	'
remove herself when she gets the opportunity, by doing away with the obsolete policies of what I am afraid is a weary, and I am certain is a moribund Administration.
Mr. ROBERT JAMES MANION (Fort William and Rainy River) :: Mr. Speaker, it is always a great disadvantage to an ordinary member of Parliament like myself to follow such a speaker as the hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat (Mr. Clark). He is always so eloquent and so interesting that it is difficult for an ordinary member to follow him. At the same time one must admit that the hon. gentleman is always consistent, as he showed in his very fine peroration to-day, in arguing for the free trade policy for which he has fought in the Parliament of Canada for very many years. Sometimes in that eloquence and that consistency he stretches a point almost beyond its elasticity to proye his argument. For example, he pointed out a few moments ago that these taxes which are being imposed by the hon. Minister of Finance will particularly hit the returned men. That is news to me. I do not see how they will hit the returned men more than any other class of people in this country, and I presume that the returned men will be as willing to pay their share of taxation as they were to make greater sacrifices when the war was on.
My hon. friend also stretched a point, a little earlier in his speech, when he was criticizing the Minister of Finance for having advised the ladies of Toronto that they should not import the luscious strawberry out of season, paying for it by exporting the juicy grape, and he pointed out as a reason against giving advice against importation that one of the ways by which we can wipe out the $70,000,000 deficit on the national railways is by such things as importing strawberries into the country and exporting grapes out of it. I think, Mr. Speaker, it would take considerable fruit to wipe out that $70,000,000 deficit.
Another statement which the hon. gentleman made was that the unemployment situation in this country was very severe. I admit that; no one can dispute it. There is a business depression throughout the world, but at any rate the unemployment situation in protectionist Canada is not quite so bad as it is in free trade England, where the Prime Minister a short time ago suggested that the unemployed of that country should emigrate to the colonies.

Then my hon. friend also pointed out another interesting thing. I believe he quoted Adam Smith as saying that Holland had ruined herself by taxing the necessaries of life.


Michael Clark: May I correct my hon. friend? I am sure he does not wish to misrepresent me. I quoted Adam Smith as saying that in his day the manufacturers of Holland had been ruined. Everybody knows that Holland to-day is not ruined but is a thriving country.


Robert James Manion: I am sorry I misquoted my hon. friend; I had no intention of doing so. The correction, however, does not affect my argument. The point I was going to make was this, that if the taxing necessaries of life by customs duties-and this is what I understood my hon. friend to mean-leads to the ruin even of the manufacturers of a nation, it should he remembered that the United Kingdom imposes customs duties on necessaries, to a vast extent. I think I would be correct in saying that the customs duties imposed by the United Kingdom are as high per capita as the customs duties in Canada; that is, there is as much per capita collected by that means in the United Kingdom. The strange part of it is that all these customs duties in the United Kingdom are upon the necessaries of life; they are upon products which are not produced in the United Kingdom; upon tea, sugar, tobacco, (which after all is more or less a necessary of life), coffee and cocoa, and gasoline,' I am reminded by an hon. member; tH+ is a point worth remembering in regard to the taxation of the United Kingdom.
Another point that always strikes me in listening to the arguments of hon. gentlemen who advocate a free trade policy is that they nearly always criticise every form of taxation. They seem to be under the impression that no money needs to be raised. They do not suggest any other method whereby the necessary revenue can be raised.
I would like to say that I was rather surprised to find that my hon. friend from Red Deer is going to support the amendment proposed by my hon. friend from Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding). It seems rather peculiar to find an out-and-out free trader like' the hon. member for Red Deer, sailing in the same boat, to use his own expression, with the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's, who is the same kind of moderate protectionist that I am and other hon. gentlemen on this 
side of the House. It made me feel that perhaps amendments like platforms are things to get in on, and not to stand on, as some one said.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at Eight o'clock.


Robert James Manion: Mr. Speaker, when the House rose at 6 o'clock I was discussing the speech of the hon. gentleman who had preceded me, the member for Red Deer '(Mr. Clark), and was pointing out the difference between his policy and that ot the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding). I was struck ,by the peculiar fact that during the hon. gentleman's speech my hon. friends on the other side, that is to say, the regular Liberal Opposition, cheered the member for Red Deer to the echo on many occasions when he was voicing free trade principles which certainly the Liberal party had never upheld or put into practice when in office to any greater extent than had the party on this side of the House. In this connection, the remarks of my hon. friend from Red Deer brought to my mind the fact that when the member for Shelburne and Queen's was speaking the other day he stated that while he was not advocating a protectionist policy, neither was he propounding free trade principles. He was quite emphatic on that point, and he went so far as to say that nobody in this country was upholding a free trade policy. He declared that the Liberal party was not upholding such a policy, nor was the Agrarian party, nor any other body of men. When I heard the hon. and eloquent member for Red Deer addressing the House this afternoon I could not help thinking that the member for Shelburne and Queen's, as he also listened to the hon. gentleman, must have felt that perhaps he had covered too much territory in the statement which he made the other day. It reminded me of an incident which I once witnessed. A man who was somewhat the worse for whisky was standing in a room, and he boasted that he was better than any man in the company present. No one heeded the remark, and he then declared that he was better than any man in the city. Emboldened by the silence with which this boast was received, he went a step further and said that he was better than any man in the country, and

some one walked up to him and knocked him down. As he got up he said: "I know what is the matter with me; I have covered too much territory." As I say, when I listened to the speech of the hon. member for Red Deer, I thought that the member for Shelburne and Queen's must have felt that he, too, had covered too much territory in saying that nobody was upholding a free trade policy in this country.
Last year, when I spoke on the Budget, I gave many facts dealing with the question of free trade and protection, as they apply to Canada, and in doing so I had occasion to make comparisons between protectionist countries, such as Germany and the United States, and a free trade country such as the United Kingdom. In support of my contentions, I submitted facts rather than theories; because, after all, a theory may be as plausible and logical as you wish, but before it can be accepted, it must stand the test of facts. All who have studied history know that there were theories propounded by Aristotle which had been accepted for many centuries but which finally when tested had to be renounced because they were no longer tenable. In this connection, I trust my hon. friend from Red Deer will not demur to my going back so far in history, because he himself went back four centuries beyond Confucius. Many of the theories of Aristotle which had been accepted by the world for centuries were in the end disproven and shown to be fallacious; and yet it is a peculiar fact that those who uphold a theory on mere theoretical grounds, refusing to subject their reasoning to correction in the light of facts, very often, when they find others opposing them are inclined to describe those with whom they cannot agree as heretics. In so many words, they say: if the facts do not square with our theories, well, so much the worse for the facts.
I do admit, Mr. Speaker, that the theory espoused by my hon. friend for Red Deer is an easy one upon which to base an argument; it sounds plausible and logical enough. But even if it were generally accepted to-day in the economic world, the so-called free trade policy, as it has worked out in the United Kingdom, is not necessarily the best policy for our country. Even assuming that it were accepted as a truism that free trade is the best policy for the United Kingdom, that would not prove it to be the best policy to apply to this country. Why do I say that? The United
Kingdom is a country of small area, immensely developed manufacturing plants, highly developed capital, and fully developed natural resources; and certain other attributes which do not exist in Canada. On the other hand, Canada has an immense area, very great, but undeveloped natural resources, little accumulated capital, and little developed manufacturing plants. So that a theory or a policy that might apply with the utmost satisfaction to the United Kingdom might be highly unsatisfactory to Canada. In referring to free trade in connection with the United Kingdom, I purposely used the qualifying expression "so-called," because it has been fairly logically established that the so-called1 free trade of the United Kingdom is not, as a matter of fact, free trade, but an almost unlimited free import. Free trade should embrace two parties; and as a matter of fact, the United Kingdom is the only country of any importance which has put this policy into practice. So that the United Kingdom, while it has given free import to other countries, has really not participated in the mutual advantages that should characterize free trade.
In my speech of last year, which I shall summarize briefly, so that I may not repeat any arguments I then used, I took up the foreign commerce of some of the different important countries of the world, because foreign commerce is one of the things which those who support the free trade policy boast very loudly of as being one of the prominent assets of Great Britain. I pointed out in that speech that between 1890 and 1913, Germany and the United States, two well known protectionist countries, were making much more rapid progress in their foreign commerce than was the United Kingdom. I pointed out further-and I shall repeat the facts again to-night,

that in many of the European markets Germany was selling more than free trade United Kingdom. I showed that Germany had been outselling the United Kingdom in ten important countries before the war. Just here I may say that most of the facts which I submit in this connection have reference to the pre-war period, because it is hardly fair to base argument on conditions as they are to-day, in view of the unsettled state of world affairs. I pointed out that the national debt, per capita, in Great Britain was greater than in the United States or Germany; and in regard to the general welfare of the people of the United Kingdom and other countries, I proved that conditions Wfn

not as good in the United Kingdom as in some other places, so far as those conditions could be judged from such facts as deposits in the savings banks, immigration and unemployment statistics as given by the trade unions of the various countries concerned. Upon these facts, and upon the authority of various writers whom I quoted, I think I showed that the conditions of the ordinary people in the United States were better certainly than in the United Kingdom, and even in Germany they were probably as good as, if not better than, conditions in Great Britain.
Then I touched on railways-a question to which my hon. friend from Red Deer referred this afternoon-and I showed that the United Kingdom had the highest capitalization of any country in the world, and what was very much more important, that the railway rates in the United Kingdom were higher than the rates in Germany, or France, or Austria and a number of other European countries, and about double the rates of the United States or Canada. I touched on pauperism and I gave statistics from the Statesman's Year Book to show that pauperism in the United Kingdom was certainly as great as in Germany, and perhaps greater, and certainly much greater than in the United States. Finally, I touched upon agriculture which my hon. friend from Frontenac (Mr. Edwards) covered so completely last night. 1* pointed out at that time that agriculture in the United Kingdom had practically been wiped out under free frade. When I say "practically wiped out" it had been reduced by about fifty per cent under free trade; that while the United Kingdom imported a very great proportion of her food, none of the other countries in Europe imported so much food as the United Kingdom. Take, for example, the growing of wheat. I pointed out that the United Kingdom was greatly surpassed by France, by Germany, by Austria, by Italy, even by Spain-that Spain doubled in 1913-I think that was the year I gave-the wheat production of the United Kingdom. Then I contrasted with that, the development of agriculture in the United States, where it had gone ahead by leaps and bounds, and I pointed out by figures the extent of the development of the natural resources in that country. That is a resume, in brief, of the speech which I made; and I may say that while a number of speakers who followed me took up the theories I expounded and the conclusion to which I came, none of them disputed the facts, so I thought I could come to the

conclusion that my facts were pretty correct. Indeed I am quite positive they were because most of them were taken from official sources.
Now, Sir, I submit that this question of a tariff policy for Canada is still a very vital one to be decided in the best interests of the country. That is the only interest that I have at heart, because I am neither a farmer on the one hand nor a manufacturer on the other. Since then I have looked over the question more thoroughly I have looked over the records of many English writers and while to-day there are many who still uphold free trade as a theory, there is an increasing number of writers in the United Kingdom who are coming to the conclusion that the United Kingdom has been too generous to its trade rivals in opening its markets freely to them, and there are many who have come completely to the conclusion that the United Kingdom should adopt an entire reversal of policy. Let me mention the name of one writer whose works I found very interesting, John Holt Schooling, a well-known writer in the United Kingdom. H<* has written a book, entitled "The British Trade Book." It is a remarkable work, composed for the greater part of statistics, showing the trade of the United Kingdom in its various branches. This writer comes to absolutely the same conclusions which I came to, only he gives many more arguments and reasons in support of them- he covers the ground in a much more elaborate way. I had not seen the book at the time of my investigations last year although it was written some time before. He points out that although the first edition was issued some six years before the one which I read the facts had never been disputed, and he had come to the conclusion, in brief, that free trade was a brain-spun doctrinaire theory, not based upon facts, and that it was not applicable to any country.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I wish to allude to a few of the statements of other speakers -not in this debate but in speeches delivered throughout the country-and first I wish to touch just for a moment on the speech of my hon. friend, the member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar), who, in one of his speeches, made the statement that anybody who mixed up the question of revenue with the question of protection was not only inconsistent but was attempting to mislead the country. Those were the words the hon. member used himself- that a man who did that was inconsistent

and was attempting to mislead the country. Well, Sir, if the hon. gentleman had said the higher the custom tariff the lower the revenue I would say he was perfectly correct; but to imply, as- he implied, that if you have a protective tariff you cannot get any revenue from it, is going very much beyond the fact. I regret that my hon. friend from Marquette is not in the chamber at the present moment; however, that is not my fault. But I should like to point out to him; what he will no doubt admit, that Canada is a protectionist country. I know he has stated that the protectionist policy which has prevailed in Canada ever since 1878 is harmful to this country. He will therefore admit that Canada is under a protective tariff and yet Canada has raised millions of dollars -yes, hundreds of millions of dollars-[DOT] by that tariff. Then he will no doubt also admit that the United States is a protective country. Before the war the United States had the highest protective tariff in the world and by that protective tariff it raised a revenue exceeding that of any other country. So I think these two facts absolutely refute the statement of my hon. friend that a protective tariff cannot give revenue. In making the statement which he did my hon. friend is simply mixing up prohibition-I mean prohibition of customs-with protection; because if you put a tariff of, say, 100 per cent on a certain line of goods none of these goods come in and therefore there will be no revenue; but a moderate tariff will give a certain amount of protection and a certain amount of revenue. He was mixing moderate duties and restraints on trade, just as in the United Kingdom certain people mix up free trade with free imports. It is another case of theory versus fact.
It recalls to my mind an incident which occurred in the House last year during the debate on oleomargarine. The Minister of Agriculture introduced a Bill on the subject and my hon. friend from Bed Deer got up and spoke. He advocated the free trade theory, in the eloquent manner so easy with him, and he pointed out that if Canada had a free trade policy we would have butter at reasonable prices and there would be no need to bother about oleomargarine. That is a synopsis of what he said. Well, out of curiosity I sent out to the reading room and got a copy of the London Times. There I looked up the price of butter in London and found that the price in free trade England, the wholesale price, was higher than the retail price of butter
in protectionist Canada. That is another instance of theory versus fact.
Now I wish to touch upon the subject of immigration. My hon friend from Red Deer referred to that subject last year- and he said (opposing the right hon. leader of the Government) that emigration from the United Kingdom had increased after 1846, because protection had made the people so poor they could not emigrate previously. Then my hon. friend from Red Deer made this statement-That people do emigrate most when they are most prosperous. My hon. friend is usually very logical and very plausible but it is almost too much of a strain upon our imagination to think that people who are living prosperously in their own country will pack up and go out to practically a foreign country and there perhaps cut a home for themselves out of the woods.
My hon. friend in the same speech said that he wanted cheap goods and he cared not whence they came-speaking I believe at that time on the subject of tobacco. That is a very common free trade argument, and I should like to point out to my hon. friend, that there are countries in the world which are very cheap countries to live in-at least so far as buying things is concerned-and yet they are 'sometimes the most poverty ridden countries to be found. For example take the case of China and India. I believe there are no countries in the world where labour is so cheap-and labour is a good criterion of the price of other commodities in those countries-yet in China we have recently seen thirty-five millions of people brought to starvation, and in India from time to time there have been famines which could hardly be overcome.
I might point out also, Mr. Speaker, that the year before the war I had the pleasure of travelling in Southern Italy, and I well remember when visiting Naples I would hire a carriage for the afternoon and after driving around for two or three hours I would ask my cocher how much I owed him, and he would probably say, "Two lire," which would be about forty cents in Canadian currency. I used to feel ashamed to pay him such a small sum even with a tip added. I point that out because Naples at that time was an exceedingly cheap city to live in, and yet was one of the most poverty-stricken centres I have ever seen.
Real desirable cheapness depends more upon competition and large production than upon free imports. An English writer, Sir Guilford Molesworth, in giving the


Hon. RODOLPHE LEMIEUX (Maison-neuve) :: Mr. Speaker, I shall not trespass too long on the valuable time of the House. First of all, let me congratulate my hon. friend from Fort William and Rainy River (Mr. Manion) upon the magnificent address that he has delivered. I regret that we lost him in 1917, because I am sure that with his eloquence and his youth he would have been quite an addition to the Liberal forces in this Parliament. I hope, however, that the young sinner will repent and that some day he will find his way across the chamber.
I have listened with a great deal of attention to the Budget speech delivered by my hon. friend the present Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton). I think that on the whole it must be conceded that the hon. gentleman was courageous and frank, and that he is entitled to the sympathy not only of this Parliament but of the whole country in view of the appalling situation in which Canada finds herself today. There will he regret expressed all over the land, however, because of the fact that the hon. gentleman failed to implement the promise which his predecessor made on several occasions on the floor of the House, and which he himself reiterated last year when he delivered his first Budget, that there would be a revision of the tariff. When one speaks of the revision of the tariff, one naturally thinks of a revision downwards. I have, Sir, expressed the opinion that there is regret abroad that there is no revision of the tariff, but I believe that when the Budget speech is read from one end of the country to the other, the country may perhaps be satisfied with the one presentment made by the hon. gentleman, because, though there is no revision in the duties downwards, one can certainly see by glancing over the resolutions introduced by my hon. friend the day before yesterday, that there is at least some revision upwards in the tax bill. I am not at all surprised at what has happened. I have never myself believed that there would
be a revision downwards by the hon. Minister of Finance or his associates in the Government.
The Commission of Inquiry which roamed across the continent from ocean to ocean last fall wis-s an object lesson to every Canadian who followed the events of the day. As my hon. friend passed from town to town, from city to city, from province to province he met delegation after delegation, of farmers, fishermen, manufacturers, labourers, miners, indeed of all classes. I followed very closely the evidence placed before the commission, more particularly in the province from which I come. My hon. friend the Minister of Finance listened complacently to the representations made by the high tariff people, but with some nervousness to the many representations that were made to him by those who favoured a reduction in the tariff. Not only did he show some nervousness on those occasions, but he even took issue with those who dared advocate a reduction in the tariff. As my hon. friend was thus pursuing his inquiry, his leader, the present Prime Minister, nailed to the mast the colours of his party and of the Government. He preached high protection from one province to another and so I lost confidence in the revision-to-be, and it is just as well that there has been no revision at all this year, because one may conjecture what a real revision means. Mr. Speaker, there is amongst the men of my faith an accepted maxim that when Rome has spoken the case is closed-Roma locuta est, causa finita esit. The Minister of Finance and the leader of the Government have spoken without equivocation on the question of the tariff, and for the Canadian people the case is now closed. Canada will have high protection; she will have a high tariff, and I am sure that that will suit my genial friend the Minister of Marine and Fisheries and the special class which he represents.
I listened with great attention to the able speech of my young friend the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River. I am not going to join issue with him, because, indeed, he has proven too much. He has proven that John Bull is very miserable under his abominable free trade policy. That is too much for me. It is true that the evidence which my hon friend adduced in support of his theory is what I might call bookish evidence. It is not based on facts, but on theories propounded by doctrinaires who would be only too happy if the whole world was commercially at war.

Yes, my hon. friend has proven too much, and I do not propose to accept his challenge.
I am not going to discuss here the respective merits of free trade and protection. The Parliament of Canada is not an academy. The Parliament of Canada is a forum, and the people of Canada represented by the Government and by His Majesty's loyal Opposition have to face problems as they are, not as they would have them. I have read in the almanac published a century ago by Benjamin Franklin, the quaint old saying that you must take men and events as they are, not as they should be. I claim to be a practical man, and as a practical man I must face conditions, and not a theory. Living as we do under a regime of protection, and standing as I do for a moderate measure of protection, mind you, for a reasonable measure of protection, nevertheless I cannot help saying that I regret that free trade is not the trade policy of this civilized world. I wish that Canada, if it were possible, but it is not, could have free trade as they have it in England. Free trade, I need not say, is a landmark in the history of the United Kingdom; but not only that, the introduction of free trade during the last century was a distinct landmark in the history of modern civilization.
I cannot but smile when I hear such a student as the right hon. member who leads the Government (Mr. Meighen) hint that free trade has made England a poor country. Last year he told us, in so many words, that under free trade, England had become a nation of remittance men. A nation of remittance men! Free trade England, Sir, during the last war, the greatest of all conflicts that have ever perturbed this wide world, showed of what mettle she was made. During that war, free trade England financed herself, first of all, to the extent of thirty-five billion dollars, and then she financed many of the Allied nations to the extent of eight billion dollars; and free trade England, which suffered and bled during those four years, is to-day paying off her debts to the tune of one billion dollars per year. I wish that my country, Canada, could follow the lead given by that nation of remittance men. But, as I said a moment ago, Canada is not England. Canada is Canada, and in spite of the misrepresentations of the Tory press, in spite of some of the speeches which are at times delivered by hon. gentlemen opposite, 'Canada never had a free trade 
policy embalmed in her statute books. And why? Because Canada, relatively speaking, is a new country, with immense territory extending from ocean to ocean, and over that vast space she has but a very sparse population, and the cost of government, civil and otherwise, is very heavy. Therefore, of necessity, the raising of revenue is a constant problem for this country.
How shall you raise your revenue? How shall you pay for the cost of your Government? There are but two ways of meeting the exigencies of revenue: indirect taxation, customs duty and excise, and direct taxation, that is, income tax. I am pleased that the Canadian people have at last learned how the revenue is raised. So long as Canada had only recourse to indirect taxation to meet her national obligations and the cost of government, and so long as she enjoyed relatively prosperous times, she did not fully realize what it was to raise a revenue. But, Sir, in Parliament, during the war, as the expenditure was growing from year to year, and reaching enormous proportions, it became imperative that recourse should be had to other sources of taxation, and I was one of the first, from my place in the House, to advocate the income tax. The income tax exists in the old countries; it has existed in France for many years. It is the most practical form of taxation, because thereby, the people feel that they have to pay, and they therefore look to their governments for the proper application of the moneys which are taken from them. Canada, therefore, has two systems of taxation, and with the customs, the instrument of taxation is, of course, the tariff. I regret that my brilliant friend from Fort William and1 Rainy River (Mr. Manion) extolled to the seventh heaven, such a barbarous system, because, after all, it is a barbarous system. My hon. friend, who is very fond of history, will find in the elements of political economy, that the origin of the word "Tariff" is traced to the name of a little port in Spain, a country which he compared a moment ago to England. He will find that in Spain in the old days, when the buccaneers roved the ocean, watching for the ships laden with the goods of this world, they would leave the little port of Tarifa and then levy sums of money on the legitimate traders from Britain, France, and other countries. Hence the origin of the word tariff; Tarifa was the
9 p.m. home of the tariff, notwithstanding that it may now obtain in Canada, America, Germany, or elsewhere.


Robert James Manion: May I say that I was
not lauding the tariff? My position was exactly the position of my hon. friend; I was taking necessities into account.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Now, the war is over,
and the glamour of war has vanished; and my hon. friend who, as he said a moment ago, supported in 1911 the infamous Reciprocity Pact, might come across to this . side, for there is no shackle that should keep him where he is at present, unless it he that his hopes are exalted, and that he anticipates finding himself some day seated next to the Minister of Finance as one of the Cabinet ministers.


Ernest Lapointe: It would he a pretty
short stay.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Mr. Speaker, we in
Canada are, of necessity, a protection-given people; but there are different ways of applying that policy. It is alleged in the press and in the House, by way of a taunt to us, that the Liberal party and the party opposite are alike, and that there is no real difference between hon. members on your right, Mr. Speaker, and those on your left, the only difference being as between the party angularly opposite the Minister of Finance, and the rest of the House. Well, Sir, parties in this country must be judged by their methods, by their records, by their accomplishments. Let us eliminate the war period, which I admit was an abnormal one, a period that required of this Parliament, and of the country, more sacrifices than ordinarily in the matter of taxation and expenditure.
Let us take two normal periods of recent history. Surely the party to your right, Mr. Speaker, will not disown the period which saw the birth of the National Policy, from 1879 to 1896. For our part we to your left, Mr. Speaker, are proud of the period that extends from 1896 to 1911. We are proud of the gentleman who, because he was the Finance Minister, personified that golden era which he described last year and yesterday in such eloquent language. Consider the series of deficits which mark the administration of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster) from 1883 until 1896- deficits which in 1896-1897 amounted to $519,000. We can compare those deficits with the surpluses which mark the Liberal administration. Thus, the year 1896-97, the last fiscal year for which the Minister of Trade and Commerce was responsible, was marked by a deficit of more than half a million dollars, and the year 1911-1912 the last fiscal year for which the hon. member
for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) was responsible, was marked by a surplus of over $37,000,000. Mr. Speaker, I say that I can compare with pride the years when I had the honour to he associated with the Laurier-Fielding administration.
To listen to hon. gentlemen opposite one would imagine that prosperity was nonexistent during that period and that we should forget all about it. It is by reading history and by remembering the past that we may guide ourselves for the future. From 1878 until 1896 no less than one million Canadians drifted to the Republic to the south of us. The population of Canada in 1878 was only 4,078,000. In 1896 it had increased, to 5,086,000 in round figures. In 1901, under the Liberal Government, the population of Canada was 5,403,000 and in 1911 it had grown to 7,158,000. The deposits in chartered banks and savings banks in 1878 were a little over $79,000,000. In 1896 they amounted to a little over $245,000,000. In 1911, thanks to that wave of prosperity which had passed over this country, there was in the savings banks and in the chartered banks the enormous sum of $968,183,000. The total exports of Canadian produce in 1878 were $68,000,000 in round figures; in 1896, $110,000,000; and in 1911, $274,316,000 in round figures. The total export of agricultural products in 1878 was $18,000,000; in 1896, $40,000,000; and in 1911, $82,601,000. Of manufactured products there were exported in 1878, $4,127,000; in 1896, $9,365,000; and in 1911, after the Laurier government had been in office for fifteen years the exports of manufactured products amounted to $35,283,000. I say, Mr. Speaker, that with the same basic policy, but administered by different methods and different men, the Liberal party gave Canada prosperity, whilst hon. gentlemen opposite gave Canada adversity.
Last year, and again yesterday, the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's explained how he applied in 1896 the principles that were so successful. He held an inquiry from ocean to ocean. He received the farmer, the fisherman, the miner, the manufacturer, the labourer. Did he insist that those who came before his colleagues and himself should be satisfied with either a high tariff, or a low tariff, or no tariff at all? He listened, and having listened, he returned to Ottawa and framed a tariff policy which was given effect to in the session of 1897. The Liberal and Conservative policies are alike, we are told, and it is even asserted that the duties were higher under the Fielding tariff than they

are under the Drayton tariff. Yesterday the member for Shelburne and Queen's explained fully and to the entire satisfaction of any unbiased mind, that there was a revision downward under his tariff reform, 47 articles were added to the free list, and there was a substantial reduction in 147 other articles. In 1907, ten years later-following- the policy which my hon. friend (Mr Fielding) had adopted of revising the tariff every decade-he held another inquiry from ocean to ocean and as a result there was a further revision downward, and 253 articles were put on the free list.
Even my hon. friend the present Minister of Finance will agree with me, I think, that the establishment of the British , preference was a splendid stroke of policy 

a policy which was acclaimed not only by the Canadian people but by the people of the United Kingdom. It was then that Canada became known throughout the whole world. In order to make that policy effective the right hon. the late Sir Wilfrid Laurier and my hon. friend from Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding), the then Minister of Finance, obtained from the Mother Country renunciation of the Belgian and German treaties. The establishment of the British preference is a landmark in the fiscal history of Canada. First it was 12 per cent, then it was raised to 25 per cent, and finally to 331 per cent.
What were the results of that policy? We are told by some of the die-hards of the Tory party that the aim of the Liberal fiscal policy, if carried out to its full intent, would be the destruction of our industries. I am glad to see my hon. friend the Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Ballantyne) in his seat, for he is one of the beneficiaries of the wise Liberal policy of 1897. If he ever became the business man he is-and every one will admit that he is a good business man -it is because of the policy which was carried out under the direction of my hon. friend from Shelburne and Queen's. We were told that the industries of this country would be wiped out, and my hon. friend cited yesterday the classical phrase of the late leader of the Conservative party, Sir Charles Tupper. Well, 'et us see what happened. In 1S90 the capital invested in our manufacturing industries was in round figures $331,635,100; in 1900, three years after the Fielding policy, the capital invested had reached the figure of $446,916,000; and in 1910, the year which preceded the defeat of the Liberal Government, that capital investment amounted to 
$1,247,583,000. Salaries and wages paid in 1890 amounted in round figures to $79 -000,000; in 1900 to $113,000,000; in 1910 to $241,000,000. The value of products in 1890 in round figures represented $368,000,000; in 1900	$418,000,000; in 1910
$1,165,975,000. Those are the results of the sane application of a policy by statesmen who had regard not only to the manufacturers but to the labourers and - the consumers at large.
The British preference, Mr. Speaker, was one of the mainstays' of the Liberal fiscal policy of 1897. That edifice of the hon. then Minister of Finance was crowned by the reciprocity pact which he negotiated with the American Government without going on his knees to Washington but at the invitation of the President himself, while during many years before under the Dingley and McKinley tariffs,-which practically prevented Canada from trading with the United States-our statesmen from both parties had been annual pilgrims to Washington.
I for one deeply regret the present attitude taken by the U.S. Congress. These are sad forebodings-the Fordney Bill, replaced the other day by the Young Bill. That measure speaks a language which will create in many Canadian homes sincere regrets that the country went wrong in 1911. As the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's stated yesterday, with a sob of emotion in his voice, Canada could complain before 1911, but after the attitude of the right hon. gentleman (Sir Robert Borden) and his Government and associates, she cannot complain now because she has officially declined to accept the offer made to her. Sir, it is essential that as between Canada and the great American Republic there should be the most cordial relations. As I stated once before, the two countries speak the same language and are governed by practically the same laws, they practise the same religion and share the same ideals. The peoples of the two countries are liberty lovers and God fearing. Although we have a long boundary line between us, it is entirely unfortified and there is no cloud of misunderstanding. We have given a worthy lead to the nations of the world by settling our differences amicably, and I hope there will never be fired a shot in anger by either of the two countries. Since the war of 1812 forty-three questions between the two countries have been settled by arbitration, and because the Treaty of Ghent has been adhered to by Great Britain on the one hand and the United States on the other

324E
there has never been a ripple to speak of in the relations between both countries.
But, as .the British ambassador stated in Ottawa last fall, speaking before the Canadian Club, great wars between nations are generally if not always preceded by commercial quarrels. Why should we in Canada or they in the United States pick a quarrel in respect to matters affecting our mutual trade relations? I hope, that common sense will prevail. I do not know why our friends of the Tory party are so faint hearted that they will not prosper alongside the United States by exchanging goods with them. I hope that the leader of the Government who is a staunch Britisher, can answer for the loyalty of the Tory party. I know that the leader of the Liberal party and the respected member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding), whose devotion to British ideals is well recognized, can answer for the loyalty of the Reformers.
I have, I think, demonstrated, to the satisfaction of this side of the House at all events, that if it is the same basic principle which is followed of necessity-the principle of protection-at least the methods persued are different. Yes, Mr. Speaker, the methods differ. You have only to think of the period between the years 1896 and 1911. Were there any bread lines during those years? Were there any unemployed? I will not say 150,000, because that is the number of unemployed at present in Canada. I will not say 35,000, the number of unemployed in the city of Toronto alone. Were there at any time during those fifteen years 10,000, even 5,000 unemployed persons? There was no unemployment ; the country was busy, almost feverish in its activities. But to-day, what a serious condition of unemployment. Then, there is the decrease in the rural population. I have not the figures for each province but I know that in the banner province of Ontario there has been a marked decrease in the rural population, and there is a loud complaint from rural constituencies that this state of things is demoralizing. The population, is decreasing in rural centres and increasing abnormally in urban centres. Did you find that state of affairs during the Liberal regime? Sir, one must judge of a policy by its results. Do you think, for instance, that during the administration of the Finance Department by my hon. friend from Shelburne and Queen's you would have seen any coquetting with the sugar refiners of Canada one evening and the next morning a quick order given
to the Board of Commerce-the Prime Minister's own creation-to force the Canadian consumer to pay 21 cents a pound for refined sugar at a time when that sugar was being sold at 11, 12 and 13 cents-


Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: Do I understand that my hon. friend is referring to me?


Rodolphe Lemieux: Oh, no; my hon. friend is too good a soul, too humane to practice such methods. But he will not deny that all of a sudden last fall the Canadian people realized what protection by the Tory party meant. Here was a case where the Canadian consumers were forced to pay 21 cents, forced to buy from the Canadian refiner only, when across the line that same sugar could be bought at 11, 12 and 13 cents. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Government for having given to the consumers that object leason of what protection is as administered by a Tory Government.
Mr. Speaker, one must judge of a policy by its results. Who will deny that during the fifteen years of Liberal administration the vast prairies of the west became the subject of peaceful invasion on the part of sound and healthy immigrants? I have many quarrels to settle as a member of the Laurier Government, as a Canadian and, shall I say, as a French Canadian, with the ex-Minister of the Interior, Sir Clifford Sifton. But simple truth compels me to say that as Minister of the Interior he had a full grasp of the prob-blem of immigration. I have to admit, Sir, that no Minister of the Interior ever did as much for the Canadian West as Sir Clifford Sifton did. Compare the administration of that regime with that of the present incumbent, and his immediate predecessor, and what is the spectacle that you have? The figures were given by the genial member from Mackenzie (Mr. Reid) as taken from the annual report of the Commissioner General of Immigration of the United States for 1920. For the year 19J8-19 the total number of immigrants coming into Canada from the United States was 44,003 and for the year 1919-20, 48,624. But here is a regrettable statement to make: In 1918-19, 96,075 Canadians left Canada and drifted to the United States. Worse still, in 1919-1920, 143,843 Canadians left Canada for the United States.	The net loss to Canada in
1918-1919 was 52,072 and, in 1919-20, 95,219. I say again that the two policies cannot be the same; because they are so far apart in their results. Under the Lib-



[Stage Direction]
eral regime, the West became a vast expanse of smiling fields, whilst to-day certain sections of the West, if I am correctly informed, are being desolated by this plague of emigration. Surely, Sir, it is not the same policy, and the hon. member for Shelburne and Quleen's (Mr. Fielding) proved that beyond peradventure yesterday as he quoted the famous comment of the late Sir Charles Tupper. For the veterans of the House who remember the kind and genial gentleman who once represented the county of Halton, and was honoured by his political friends with an appointment to the Privy Council, I might quote the late Mr. Henderson, who, speaking in 1902 on the fiscal policy of the Liberal party, used this language:
It was said in the early days of the present tariff that the Liberals had stolen our clothes. What is being said now? I have never said so and I do not consider that thev have done anything of the kind. I am only sorry that they did not, for it would have been better if they had. Their tariff is instead, just the antipodes of ours.
There you have the confession of faith of the leaders of the Conservative party that the two policies are not the same; they are applied differently, and in my judgment, applied with success by the Liberal party. This, however, is |past history. What of the future? The situation is fraught and freighted with heavy responsibilities indeed. It is true that the Canadian people are tendered candid advice on the part of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster). Last year, after looking at the rows of figures which constitute our national debt, our deficits, our total- taxation, the right hon. gentleman said:	"Oh, well, we must practise
economy.'' These are his very words:
Stop wasting. Go to work. Produce. Stop grouching and grumbling and we will soon get back to an atmosphere that is bright and happy and hopeful.
Fine words that butter no parsnips. The right hon. gentleman comes back this year, and he is again a spectator of that enormous row of figures, marshalled in his presence, so to speak, like an army, billions of national debt, millions of deficits, millions of taxes, and this time he says: "Oh, it was the war. During war time, the slogan was: more money, more munitions and more clothing." The right hon. gentleman should not forget that three years ago on November next, the armistice was signed. The glamour of war has passed away, and under the fierce light of criticism, this veneer of a pretext disappears completely. During the war my right hon. friend knows 
that money was easy to get, because the people were determined to win the war; they were enthusiastic, and they were ready to make all necessary sacrifices in order to reach the goal of victory. But that glamour has passed away and Canada must now face realities. The right hon. gentleman cannot lure the people any longer with fine rhetoric. During the war rivers of gold, of course, were flowing with such extravagant loans as were launched by my hon. friend's predecessor through the medium of untaxable victory bonds which have created in this country a monied aristocracy. I commend the courage and patriotism of the present Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton). The war was over; he launched his loan, and trusted the patriotism of the people. The bonds were not as before, untaxable. Not only have we to face an enormous debt of $2,350,000,000; not only have we to raise this year $435,360,000 on an estimated revenue, according to present legislation, of $372,600,000; but what the people of this country must realize is that besides this enormous Dominion debt, there are provincial debts and municipal debts as well, so that the taxpayer is burdened with a very heavy taxation bill. I had prepared by the Dominion statistician some figures which are very eloquent. The Dominion Government per capita debt in 1920 was $300, in round figures, while the Dominion Government per capita debt, in 1914, was only $43. As regards the provincial per capita debt, I regret the figures do no go beyond 1919, but the figures of this year are certainly greater than those of 1919. Prince Edward Island has a per capita debt of $15.59; Nova Scotia, $29.56; New Brunswick, $64.95; Quebec, $18.90; Ontario, $34.59; Manitoba, $75.30; Saskatchewan, $43; Alberta, $75.83; British Columbia, $52.13. You must add this provincial per capita debt to the Dominion Government per capita debt. Besides that, you have the municipal debts all over Canada. Unfortunately the rural municipalities and the towns do not all send in their statistics to the Dominion statistician, but I have here the figures for a few of the largest cities in Canada, showing the municipal per capita debt:	Montreal, $176.62;
*Toronto, $219.70; Winnipeg, $230.61; Vancouver, $236.21; Calgary, $371.33; Halifax, $109.94; St. John, $85.25; Regina, $291.90; Charlottetown, $59.90.
Henry Lumley Drayton: Are these
gross or net debts?


Rodolphe Lemieux: These are net debts, but gross or net, they make an alarmingly large figure when added together. This country is taxed to the limit, and overtaxed. I appeal to my hon. friend the Minister of Finance on behalf of the taxpayers of this Dominion. I know that my appeal will reach his ears, and I hope his heart too. I could read him letters by the score, from rich men, from people of the middle classes, and from the labouring classes, showing a great deal of anxiety as to how they can face the tax bills of the municipal, provincial and Dominion governments combined. I solemnly ask my hon. friend to live up to his oath of office, as I know he will. Let there be a substantial reduction in the expenditure of the Government, and a policy of retrenchment inaugurated under his regime. In view of this alarming situation, it seems to me that we should concentrate all our efforts on Canada, our country. How should we proceed? I believe in the doctrine which is expressed in the old saying "first things first." How can this Parliament concentrate all its attention and all its efforts on the welfare of Canada?
First, we should revert to responsible Government. This Parliament is not representative of the people of Canada. How can you otherwise account for the lack of interest taken in the proceedings of this House? I have sat in the House of Commons now for 25 years, when Canada never had to face problems such as she is facing now, but, Sir, in no past Parliament have I witnessed such a lack of interest in its proceedings. Yesterday I expressed my surprise to my hon. friend who sits at my right, the able and eloquent member for Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe) , that during the address delivered by the right hon. the Minister of Trade ard Commerce, admittedly one of the great orators of this country, a man of very Wide experience indeed, there should be only a handful of members on his own side to listen to him. Quick as a flash came the answer from my hon. friend, "Because this Parliament is not representative of the people. It is an abnormal Parliament which only fills a gap. The people of Canada are intent on having an election." This Government has no mandate, and why should any party sail under false colours? I can quite understand that under the stress of war a coalition Government might be formed, although the history of all coalitions both in England and in-Canada is a sad one indeed, but why 206J
should a party continue to sail under false colours? Mr. Speaker, this is a British country; we have British ideals of government. There is a Liberal party, an historic party; there is a Conservative party, an historic party. Each represents a tradition. Why should a party absorb the names of all the parties, Conservative, Liberal and National? The name of the party opposite is a misnomer. Let the Tories show their true colours; let the hon. member for London (Mr. Cronyn) who is associated with such a great Liberal statesman, let my hon. friend from Fort William and Rainy river and other hon. gentlemen who in a moment of weakness joined the Tory party return to the fold. Let me at this point quote what was said not long ago by Mr. Asquith:
My counsel to you is to keep faithful to your old traditions, to safeguard and vivify your organization and never lose sight of that saving quality which alone makes politics a reputable profession for honourable men, that a party exists not to keep power, not to acquire power, hut it .exists for the promotion of great and worthy ideals.
Just think, in a situation such as this, what would have been the attitude of men like Mr. Gladstone? Do you think they would have allowed themselves to be scared by the bogey of bolshevism-
One would almost think that Mr. Asquith was speaking in 'answer to the right hon. the Prime Minister (Mr. Meighen):
-into furling the old flag and marching, with bowed head and reversed arms, horse, foot and artillery, into the camp of the enemy?
Mr. Speaker, let us have a return to the fold on the part of those who in their heart of hearts, in their inner consciousness, feel to-day that they are untrue to their life-long principles.
Second, let us have a free press. Is there anything more degrading than the correspondence which has been published recently showing that one of the heads of the Manufacturers' Association of Canada has been summoning editors to his office and then making terms with them? The vast majority of them, I dare say, were true to their convictions and refused to become time servers to the high tariff: association. But is there anything more degrading in public life than the realization that in this young country, with such a great future ahead of it, those whose mission is to inform the constituencies should be under the whip of a representative of the big interests, and who will go the length of poisoning the wells of public opinion? Sir, this very day, in the city of Montreal, there is a case pending before the courts in which Lord Atholstan is

suing the editor of La Patrie for the recovery of a very large sum of money which is alleged to have been paid to secure the support of that paper during the elections of 1911; and according to the press, the defendants are .summoning as their witnesses the ex-Prime Minister of Canada (Sir Robert Borden), and the ex-Minister of Public Works. I have no doubt that both of these gentlemen will appear before the court at Montreal and will leave that tribunal with clean hands; but if it were proven that a party raised from big interests $50,000 or $60,000 to control one paper and one paper only during one campaign, then I say that one must despair of the future of this young country.
Having secured free Parliament and a free press, let us banish patronage forever from the public life of this country. It was said in 1911, Mr. Speaker, that at last the voice of Toronto would be heard during the elections. Will my hon. friend the Minister of Finance listen for one second to the voice of Toronto? As he lives in Ottawa, ithe civil servants in the capital might shout, perhaps, too loudly, and my hon. friend might be deafened by the uproar; but the voice of Toronto has time to mellow before reaching his ears. Here is what I read from the Civil Service Association of Toronto, -in regard to Bill No. 122, as drafted and introduced by that dear old gentleman, the minister without portfolio (Mr. Spinney), who is astray in a field in which he does not belong. The Civil Service Association of Toronto states: The Bill as drafted will provide for :
First: The substitution of political influence instead of merit in the most important appoint-merits to the public service.
Second : The substitution of political influence instead of merit in promotions.
Third: The repeal of the present preference to returned soldiers in the most important appointments.
Fourth: The nullification of the work of classification and reorganization.
Fifth: The introduction of political partisanship, political influence and inefficiency into the public service of Canada,-
from which it will be seen that all incentive to ambition and efficiency i-n the service is removed and servants of the public are again placed at the mercy of patronage mongers.
I may not be in order in discussing a Bill which is now under consideration, but I am only inferentially re-10 p.m. ferring to it, and I say that if you revive patronage, you work against what I think is and should be the aim of the Minister of Finance, namely, the practice of economy and retrenchment.
I said a moment ago that we should concentrate all our efforts on Canada. In 
the name of common sense, let us not embark upon Imperial ventures. The last war was fought for the purpose of ending all wars, and the madness of armaments has gone for ever, I trust. The sabre-rattling business has been consigned to the junk heap. Let us call a holiday in connection with armaments once and for all. There is no necessity at the present time for Canada to spend the millions which my hon. friend the Minister of Marine and Fisheries intends to devote to the naval service. The hon. gentleman can well do with at least one half of that amount. For the pride of carrying out, as he said this afternoon,-and no one on the other side seemed to evince any nervousness upon /the statement-the Laurier naval policy, I am quite willing to spend about half the amount which my hon. friend has put in the Estimates, although I do not suppose that for this year or next year, or for the next five years to come, it will be necessary to spend any money at all. But it can patrol the waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific, and we can have our naval academies and yards open; but it is unnecessary to spend this large initial amount. The trouble with my hon. friend the Minister of Marine is that he has developed an enormous appetite, he has been diving into millions and millions since the war began, and since he has been in the Government, and he cannot stop. Let me tell him in all sincerity we accept his statement that he has brought his political associates to time, he has made them accept the once abhorred naval policy of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and the principle of autonomy upon which that policy rests, but he should call a halt to more naval expenditure. Mr. Speaker, we should cut the frills of the Militia Department. There is no necessity for the Militia Department spending twenty millions this year. We can certainly do with twenty-five per cent at most of the amount placed in the Estimates under that head. As regards the mounted police I would send them into our western territories. I say to the Government "Practise economy and retrenchment not by word of mouth but by actual .deeds." This Washington Embassy outlay-well, it is better to write it off. Nobody believes in it and it is $100,000 net loss to the country; or perhaps it is $100,000 to pick up a quarrel with the Mother Country under the shelter of the British Embassy at Washington. The mercantile marine is too costly a toy. Fifty millions spent on that mercantile marine!	1	*


William Duff: Seventy millions.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Seventy millions spent
on that mercantile marine under present circumstances is nothing short of a scandal. The best authority in this country on shipping is, I presume, a gentleman whom my hon. friend (Mr. Ballantyne), well knows, the Chairman of the Canadian Ocean Services, Mr. Bosworth. Speaking at Vancouver not so very long ago that gentleman said:
"I could get all the ships X want, enough to fill your whole harbour (Vancouver)' here for from $50 to $75 a ton " Therefore, considering this tonnage shrinkage, there has not only been experienced an actual loss in operation, but a serious depreciation i-n capital as well. Last year 1 every ship in operation could have been disposed of for what they cost; to-day it is doubtful whether they could be sold for two-thirds of their cost for this condition, four things are responsible:
(1)	An unlooked-for surplus of ships. (There are 16,000,000 more tons of shipping in the world to-day than at the beginning of the war) ;
(2)	A decline in ocean freight rates. (On some commodities it has been as much as 65 per cent) ;
(3)	Smaller cargoes ; and
(4)	An increase in operation costs; supplies and wages having advanced from between 100 and 300 per cent.
I commend these words to my hon. friend . the Minister of Finance. He must substantially reduce the expenditure and retrench if he hopes to restore the credit of Canada. As was said the other day Canada, for many years to come, will be a borrowing nation. But, Sir, the lending nation will always look at the balance sheet of Canada, and when it sees such a rash programme as the one propounded by the Minister of Marine if it loans Canada at all it will he at such rates that we may well call them exorbitant.
The railway problem has to be met and it is indeed an appalling one. I shall not discuss this subject this evening, but I may have something to say upon it at a later date in the session. The only means I know of to meet this emergency is for the Government to inaugurate a vigorous policy of immigration and of land settlement. I am told that there are in the far West twenty-five million acres of unoccupied agricultural lands, within twenty-five miles of existing railways. No later than yesterday I read from Canadian Finance the following:
The settlement of 20,000,000 acres of lands in Western Canada during the next few years will have far-reaching effects. Divided into approximately 100,000 farms it would mean an influx of 100,000 farmers with their families. The average family numbering five-we would,
therefore, have 500,000 persons added to our agricultural population. It is found that the agricultural population of a country needs an equal population in industrial life which means an addition of 500,000 to the population of the cities, towns and villages of Western Canada.
The increases in national wealth which would result from the accomplishment of the aim of the Western Canada Colonization Association may be summarized as follows:
New wealth brought in by settlers
New wealth brought In by settlers.$ 150,000,000
Net worth of new farm production
in perpetuity	 1,875,000,000
New capital attracted from abroad
for industrial undertakings.. ..	75,000,000
Worth of new wealth resulting from profits on handling new farm production	 500,000,000
Total	$2,600,000,000
This vigorous land policy would increase the production of our farmers, and would thereby increase the freight available for our railway system, thus reducing the deficit.
The great asset of Canada is her soil, the great asset of Canada is the natural resources of her vast territory. After all who shalbpay this debt, this enormous debt, of ours? No doubt the revenue raised by means of taxation will pay a part of that national debt but it is through the farmer and the export of the produce of the farm, through the miner and the export of the produce of our mines, that the national debt of Canada will eventually be paid.
On this point may I call the attention of the Government to the little encouragement which is given to the mining industry. The prospecting, the proving, the developing and the operating of the mines are the four great stages of this industry. In the first three departments money is constantly expended, a very large proportion of it yielding not only no profit but no return whatever-the money is lost. Does it not appear reasonable that those who thus risk their money should be entitled to a square deal and be enabled to purchase such diversified machinery as may be required, selecting the market where the best can be purchased and where the expenditure will go the farthest. In other words, Mr. Speaker, I would like the Government in their fiscal policy to consider the case of the miner and the prospector, as I would like the Government to consider the case of the farmer in the way of cheap agricultural implements. It must not be forgotten that producers of minerals have, in the majority of cases, to compete against the world. Hence they should be safeguarded against enhancement in the cost of the necessary preliminary and ex-

perimental operations, and also against an enhanced cost of development.
Now, let me turn my attention to another subject. I have listened with a great deal of attention this afternoon to the remarks of my good friend the Minister of Marine and Fisheries. He has been very complimentary to his native province. He has repeated what we have read in the press for the past year, that Quebec is. a sane, sober-minded province, that her people are liberty-loving, law-abiding and God-fearing. I accept those compliments, Mr. Speaker. I regret that my hon. friend during the election of 1917, when he delivered a speech at Hamilton, was not so complimentary about the men from Quebec. Pardon me if I am a litle personal-


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: If my hon. friend will allow me, I never made a speech at Hamilton during the election.


Rodolphe Lemieux: At London?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: At London.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Well, really they are
not very far apart. At any rate I accept the correction.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I wish also to inform my hon. friend, without knowing what he is going to say, that never at London or any other place did I utter one word against th,e province of Quebec, either when its citizens were in the uniform of the King or otherwise; quite the contrary.


Rodolphe Lemieux: My hon. friend has a
poor memory.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I know what I
said.


Rodolphe Lemieux: He has been figuring
in so many millions respecting his ships and drydocks, that he forgets easily his rhetorie on that occasion, but I cannot forget his words-


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I know what I
said.


Rodolphe Lemieux: -becausq he said on that occasion: "I do not take my Liberalism from the Lauriers, the Lemieux, the Bour-assas and the Lavergnes." What did he mean when he said that, especially about Sir Wilfrid Laurier-and, if I may also ask, about myself? Did he mean that Sir Wilfrid Laurier had no interest in the war which brought the hon. gentleman to the Conservative party? Did he mean that I had no interest in the war? Can he explain what he meant? I will accept his explanation.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Order.


Rodolphe Lemieux: My hon. friend by that speech made what I would call in law an innuendo against my loyalty, and I resent that because, as my hon. friend said this afternoon, if in the province of Quebec racially we are French-and we are proud of our ancestry-politically we are British. Then- what was the meaning of that speech about Sir Wilfrid Laurier, his old and trusted leader, who said in 1914 that his heart was in the great conflict, and who proved true to the words he then uttered? During his whole life, including the war period, my revered leader, the right hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, was loyal through and through. And I was loyal, too. But I do not boast of my loyalty; my loyalty does not spring from the lips, it is in my heart.
My hon. friend said that we, the Liberal members on this side of the House, were satisfied at the isolation of our province. First of all, I would remind him that our province is not isolated. The Government is isolated, and my hon. friend is isolated in the aforesaid province. He promised that he would do his best to dissolve what he calls the bloc. Well, he can begin to-morrow or next week in the old riding of Yamaska. I and my friends accept the challenge. I know that my hon. friend will be given a cordial and courteous reception if he comes into the county of Yamaska. I will be there on Saturday next, nomination day, with my good friend from Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe). I invite the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, his colleague the Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty) and his other colleague the Postmaster General (Mr. Blondin) to be present on the platform. My hon. friend may say, " But I cannot deliver a speech in French." I will speak in English; my hon. friend will do likewise. I invite the whole press of Canada to send representatives. Our language there will not differ from our language here.
My hon. friend made a false step this afternoon. I could see by the attitude of the right hon. Prime Minister that he felt quite uneasy. When asked by the hon. member for Quebec East if the Government had a candidate in Yamaska, my hon. friend at once answered, " Yes, Mr. Mondou is the Government candidate in Yamaska." My hon. friend says so still, I understand. Well, if Mr. Mondou is the Government candidate, it is well that the House should know what he thinks of the Government, and what is his opinion of the Prime Minister whose candidate he

also is, if one accepts the principle of ministerial solidarity. The right hon. gentleman became Prime Minister last summer after a caucus, not after an appeal to the Canadian electorate. Mr. Mondou was just back from Europe at that time, and that great paper, La Presse, which was quoted with such pride this afternoon by the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, despatched one of its reporters to get from Mr. Mondou his opinion of the new Prime Minister. Mr. Speaker, I have crossed swords on many occasions with the right hon. leader of the Government. I differ toto coelo from him. His principles and my principles cannot agree; his policy and my policy are as far apart as night from day. But, Mr. Speaker, I would never for the life of me dare express about the Prime Minister of Canada-who, after' all, is the first citizen of the country- the opinion expressed by his candidate in the present election of Yamaska. Now my hon. friend will see what a false step he made. Remember that Mr. Mondou, in the county of Yamaska, says that he is the Mondou candidate, not the Government candidate, and will have no Government supporters around him. This, of course, is the old trick of 19,11. Here is the text of the interview. On July 8, 1920, one of the reporters of La Presse interviewed Mr. A. A. Mondou, ex-Dominion member for the county of Yamaska, and here is that gentleman's appreciation of the Prime Minister:
The selection of the Hon. Mr. Arthur Meigrhen is the worst that could have been made. Do they take the Canadian people for a lot of imbeciles, since they will impose that narrow-minded man as the head of the Government of this country? He is the most bigoted politician who sits at Ottawa, and with all that, as a minister, an undiluted chauvinist. He sees nothing but the West.
.My hon. friends from the prairies will be very much surprised to hear that.
He has not the breath of mind necessary to enable him to become a Prime Minister. He may represent the West, but not the true sentiment of the West. If one takes into account the public sentiment in the various provinces, I do not believe that he could have one of his ministers re-elected With a Prime Minister like Mr. Meighen the province of Quebec can expect nothing-not only nothing reasonable, but nothing fair. It is an open secret that he has been the High Executioner of the Government during the war period. Consult the public records : the thirty five millions-he is the one who got them from Parliament. The gag-he is the inventor of the gag. In Borden-
I quote ipsissima verba.
-the Canadian people lose an indifferent being, but In Meighen they take a hangman and an autocrat. That man represents the quintessence
of ultra-Toryism. Sir Thomas White would have accepted the task of forming a Government, but he exacted in advance the sanction of a general election, and then he would have made peace with the province of Quebec. But the hon. Mr. Meighen snaps his fingers at Quebec and will treat our province during peace time as he treated her during war time. I am convinced that we shall have elections, but come what may, I will be a candidate in Yamaska.
Now, having' read this to the House- and I assume my hon. friend will accept my English version of it-I again ask him if Mr. Mondou is still the candidate of the Government in Yamaska.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I am very glad
Mr. Speaker, that my hon. |friend has given me this opportunity to answer this question. The article that he has just read is, of course, quite familiar to me and to all members, especially those from the province of Quebec. My hon. friend takes everything that he has just read as the gospel truth.


Rodolphe Lemieux: But it is from La Presse.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Quite so, but my hon. friend has lived long enough to know that he must not take for gospel everything that he reads even in the daily newspapers of the city of Montreal. Mr. Mondou will make his reply in good time. I am happy to say that he is the Government candidate in Yamaska.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The hon. member for Gaspe invited the answer to his question, and now that the Minister of Marine has spoken I trust that the hon. member will not expect replies to further questions on the subject, as that would be entirely out of order.


Rodolphe Lemieux: The question, Mr. Speaker, was put by the member for Gaspe, and now the member for Maison-neuve will address the House.
In conclusion, let me say to my hon. friend who has charge of the Yamaska election and of the Government candidate in that election that Quebec is as sane to-day as she was yesterday and so she will be to-morrow. Let me remind my hon. friend that Quebec is as adamant to flattery as she has been to insults, and as she is to corruption and bribery. My hon. friend spoke somewhat lightly about the representation in this House from the province of Quebec; he seemed to treat my fellow members with very scant consideration. It is strange, however, that he and his friends have been systematically poaching on the

Liberal preserves of late. We may be bad fellows indeed, but if perchance we would join hands with him and betray our Liberal faith, perhaps we might be regarded as rather good accomplices. In the elections of 1917 Quebec elected 62 Liberal members out of a total representation of 65. It was Edmund Burke, I think, who said, speaking about the American rebels, that you could not draw up a bill of indictment against a whole people. If Quebec was wrong-well, as it is said of the Pope of Rome, when he speaks ex cathedra, she was in my judgment, infallibly right at the last ele'ction. Quebec, Sir, elected 62 Liberal members out of 65, against the Government and the faction which my hon. friend represents. Quebec to-day is just as much opposed to the Government as she was then. My province is entitled to choose her own associates, her own political partners. We live in a free country. If my hon. friend reads the history of the French Canadian race since it has been blessed with responsible government he will realize that my fellowmen have some regard for honour in public life. A man may become "honourable" by law-that is one thing, but to remain honourable is another thing. Hon. gentlemen on this side do not wish to become honourable only by law; they prefer to remain honourable purely and simply.
In the province of Quebec the people read history; they have some education. They remember that at the beginning of the last century Castlereagh was able to bribe a whole party, even a whole Parliament. But they know also that it was the cause of all the miseries, agitations, contentions, which have since desolated Ireland. Quebec will not be reduced to servitude as the Irish were under the corrupt agencies of Castlereagh. Quebec knows that liberties once lost are never recovered; that honour unsullied, fidelity never wavering, loyalty to political ideals, is, after all, the background of selfrespect. To my hon. friend I say in all earnestness: Quebec is not for sale.


Mr E. W. NESBITT (North Oxford) :: Mr. Speaker, I will not pretend to follow my hon. friend nor to criticise his argument to any extent, for the simple reason, that the best part of his argument at least was a resume of the Liberal regime from 1896 to 1911. As I happened to be a supporter of the Liberal Government at that time, it would look very inconsistent on my part, I am sure, to disagree with the hon.

member for Maisonneuve and Gaspe (Mr. Lemieux). I quite agree with what he said regarding the progress of the country during that period. He criticised the Government, however for the price of sugar being kept at 21 cents per pound when sugar was selling in the United States at 11 cents per pound. I was never in favour of the appointment of the Board of Commerce, as any hon. member who has sat in the House with me perhaps, knows. But I will say for the board that when sugar was selling at 30 cents per pound in the United States, they kept the price down in Canada to 23J cents per pound by the hundred pounds. I know very well that when sugar was selling at 30 cents per pound in Detroit, it was selling in our town at 23i cents, and that was the case for some time. They promised, I understand, or it was so stated, that when the price of sugar declined, they would give the refiners in this country an opportunity' to make good what they had lost during the time that the board had kept the refiners down to a losing price when the price of raws was 18i to 21 cents, and they were selling to the public refined sugar at 23 i cents.
The hon. member also said that there was a lack of interest in this Parliament, and that the reason for that was, as has been stated so many times during this session, that Parliament had not the confidence of the country. In ordinary representative bodies such as municipal councils, where a municipal council is not criticised by the public, that is generally because it has the confidence of the people and the people are perfectly satisfied. I take it for granted that the same thing is true in proportion as the sphere of representation grows wider. Therefore, I imagine that the reason why there is not more interest in what is going on in Parliament is that the people of Canada are perfectly satisfied that Parliament will carry on the affairs of the country properly. I therefore cannot agree with my hon. friend in his contention in that regard.
My hon. friend cited some figures with regard to immigration and the settlement of land in the West. In a very short space of time by those figures he not only settled the West, but paid off the national debt. This reminds me of the story of the fellow who invented an eye wash which he was trying to sell at fifty cents a bottle. He sat down and calculated that in the United States there were 50,000,000 people and that at fifty cents a bottle he would have an estimated profit of $25,000,000, because the eye wash was costing him nothing but

the cost of the bottle. I am reminded of that story because' the hon. member was going to fill up the West and pay off the national debt in a short time, according to the figures of the theorist who had compiled them.
I must congratulate the Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton) upon the Budget that he has presented to the House. In the first place he has increased the sales' tax. I know, by certain letters that I received and by other letters, that a good deal of pressure was brought to bear upon the minister to impose what is called a turnover tax which would have gone down all the way to the retailer. He has refused to impose that tax, and he has confined the sales tax to the manufacturer, the wholesaler and the importer. I congratulate him upon that because I think he is wise in so acting. It would1 be a Jtnost expensive matter to collect a turnover tax from the retailer. There are so many retailers in the country who do not keep proper books that it would have been absolutely impossible to collect the tax and to trace it up properly.
I also congratulate the minister upon dropping the business profits tax. I would have preferred to see the business profitstax dropped at least a year ago, because that tax took away from the manufacturer the money that he should have put in reserve for a rainy day, for the very times that are on us now. Last winter, if the business people and manufacturers of the country had been allowed to retain the profits they made during the last three or four years, they could have continued to employ labour to a much greater extent than they were able to employ it, because they would have had a reserve upon which they could have worked. As it was, some of them had even to borrow money to pay the taxes to which they were exposed. Unfortunately, hanks, like other institutions, have a limit to the amount they can lend to allow manufacturers to pile up goods with the prospect of selling them at some time in the future. Therefore that increased, to a large extent, unemployment this winter throughout the manufacturing sections of Canada.
I congratulate the minister also on not increasing the income tax. It was feared by a good many people that if the business profits tax was taken off the income tax would be increased. As a matter of fact, in my judgment, the minister did not lose anything by doing away with the business profits tax this year, because I doubt if there will be a very great profit in the
ordinary manufacturing or commercial business this year. . I think he will get a great deal more revenue from the income tax as it stands now than he would have got from the business profits tax. Therefore, he showed wisdom in doing away with the business profits tax and retaining the income tax. Many people find fault with the income tax on corporations. Not so much fault is found with the income tax on individuals; but on corporations the income tax is exacted before there is any distribution to the people who make up the corporation, that is, the shareholders. Afterwards, the shareholders also pay income tax. They are allowed, of course, the normal tax on dividends; at least, I presume they will be, as they were in the case of the business profits tax.
Our taxes have to be paid; we have to pay our way, no matter who has to pay the taxes, and again I congratulate the Minister of Finance on his wisdom in seeing, to the best of his ability, that we do pay our way. I think we should have done so during the war more than we did. That brings me to the question of the tariff.
I doubt if the whole people of any country would ever agree on the question of the tariff. There are so many different views expressed with regard to it. It is true that the Minister of Finance travelled from ocean to ocean getting the views of various classes of people on the tariff, but I doubt if he was very, much wiser when he got through than when he started as to what would be best in the interests of the country, because every class of people that came before him, and almost every individual, had a different view as to what the tariff should be. It is true that a good many people expected a revision of the tariff. It is also true that a good many items in the present tariff might quite properly have been reduced. It is equally true that a moderate increase could have been made to a good many items without hurting materially the people who bought the goods. The Minister decided, however, that it was not wise owing to world trade conditions to make a general revision of the tariff this year, and I cannot help but think that he was right. If there was any one thing that popularized the late Laurier Government in this country, and gave honour to the Minister of Finance in that Government, the present member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) it was the stability that he lent to the tariff during those fifteen years. The business world


James Alexander Calder: Will the hon. member please repeat the per capita figures which he gave I think there must be some mis- . take; they should be ten times what he stated.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Perhaps they are; 1
only worked it out in my mind. Perhaps it is $16.30 and $18.


James Alexander Calder: That is, no doubt, right.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Yes; I put the decimals in the wrong place. Now, I should like to say a word to the Minister of Finance, in regard to the income tax collections.
I am not in favour of the system of income tax collections which * he has put into force, because it is going to cause a great deal of bother and ill feeling, and in my judgment there will be too many unnecessary fines. It would have been much better to have collected the income tax as he did before, sending the tax sheets to those who should pay and giving them notice that they must have their return in by a certain date. If he did that, then I would be in perfect agreement with him if he fined those who did not pay any attention to the notice. No fine is levied, of course, for any error in addition, but if you make an error in any other respect you are subject to a fine, and it will cause a great deal of confusion if the present system is continued. I trust the minister will see his way clear to readjust matters in some way. Besides that, the papers are too technical at present for farmers. My office at home is continually making out reports for farmers. There is nothing in it for us, but we cannot very well object to making these returns for them because they do not really understand how to do it,
and naturally they come to us for help. I say, the papers are too technical for farmers. I am not much of a mathematician, nor an accountant, but I certainly could devise a much simpler form for farmers to make their returns upon, and if my hon. friend the Minister of Finance cannot find anyone else to assist him in this respect,
I will do so without charge.
Now, coming to the revenue. This, roughly speaking, is in the
11p.m. neighbourhood of $400,000,000;
my hon. friend gives it at $372,600,000, but we will say $400,000,000. The Estimates already tabled, amount to over $582,000,000, and some $9,000,000 extra, altogether over $590,000,000, or nearly $600,000,000. Of course, a good portion of this is treated as loans to the railways. I know that it is no sinecure for the Minister of Finance to finance this country at the present time without criticism from anyone. Personally, I am not going to criticise him, but I will ask some of the other ministers to help him out a bit, because I do not see any other way in which he can make the finances balance than by economy, and I am certainly opposed, as he is, to any more borrowing. Last year income and expenditure did not balance. The Minister of Finance had left over from the year before some $101,000,000 and, as he stated frankly, he utilized that so that he wound up with a small surplus. .Nearly all, or at least a great many of the Estimates have passed, and in my judgment a great deal of this money can be saved without doing the country a bit of harm this year. I know that there is a great attack on the Government for expenditures all over the country. It is a mistake for members to want expenditures in their own sections merely because they desire improvements immediately. Our great public works, of course, will have to go on to a certain extent for the purpose of engaging the unemployed. But take the Department of Railways and Canals, and I am sorry the minister (Mr. Reid), is not here; he can easily save that $300,000, or whatever the vote was that was passed the other night for extending the Trent Valley Canal over to Georgian hay. With all deference to the hon. gentleman, I suggest that it is not worth half a dollar to transportation after it is built. Talk about carrying grain on it! Well, you might carry it in your pocket and sail in the boat. That money could be saved this year. The building of the Welland canal is, in my judgment, a different proposition alto-

gether, because there you have a great transportation system. It' is part of what will be one day the greatest transportation system in the world for carrying the grain of the West, both American and Canadian. However, I do not think it will be necessary to spend $5,000,000 because, unless the system is being built under contract, there ought to be a reduction in the cost of the work before next Fall, and there certainly ought to be a material reduction in the price of labour. You cannot tell me that the cost of living is not coming down. The other day our local paper interviewed the grocers of the town with respect to the price of various commodities, and I have here an excerpt from that paper giving the results of inquiry. If hon. gentlemen will kindly listen I will tell them what those prices are and they will see how much the cost of living has been reduced within the last year. I have not the same faith in the figures compiled and issued by the Department of Labour that other people seem to have, because I have seen those figures analysed, item by item, and they give a very false impression in my opinion about the cost of living-that is if one wishes to live reasonably and we must all live according to our means. These are the figures in . question:
		A Tear Ago	Now
Granulated sugar	. $23.00	$11 25Flour	. 7.50	5.00Lard	. 35	.16Shortening1	. .33	.14Laundry Soaps..	. .124	.08JCorn syrup (2 lb.	tins)	. .35	.25Rolled Oats. . . .	, .07	.05Best grade rice..	22	.11Oleomargarine . .	, .42	.30Potatoes, per bag	7.50	.90Pure Jams, 4 lb.	tins..	1.40	.83Beans	.12	.07Tapioca	.20	.09Prunes	.25	.15Eggs	.50	.29Cornstarch	.12	.12
That will give an idea of the reduction in the cost of living in the town that I come from, and the prices there, so far as I know, are practically the same as they are in the cities throughout Ontario.


Mr. DECHENE:: To what figure has butter been reduced in the hon. member's district.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: It has been reduced from about sixty cents down to forty or thirty-five cents.


Joseph Bruno Aimé Miville Déchêne: May I tell the hon.
member that butter is selling in Montreal at twenty-six cents this week.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: That is all right; it is a reduction. It hurts the fellow that is selling the butter a little, but still the price is coming down. I say that prices are coming down, and that the cost of building the Welland canal should also be lowered, unless the work is under contract at a certain price, because the cost of labour should be reduced.
Now I am going to speak for a moment about the railways. You cannot tell me that the loss on railway operation cannot be cut if the management of our railways take the bit in their teeth, as it were, and cut off the service where traffic does not warrant that service. Let the railway management call a conference of the heads of the various labour departments and tell them frankly that the wages under the Mc-Adoo award, and as adopted by the Chicago Board, ought to be adjusted. By putting up a bold front and doing as every one of us would do in our own private business we could reduce the losses on these railways this year by $25,000,000 at the lowest calculation. We have to do it, and we have to save these moneys in the various departments. Why? Because the Minister of Finance will find that the revenue from Income Tax will not this year amount to anything like the sum'that it did last year. As for the revenue from sales tax I could name firm after firm that are not selling to-day fifty per cent of what they were selling at this time last year. It will not be ' the fault of the Minister of Finance if the revenue falls off; it will be the fault of all of us, and we should back him up in trying to cut down any expenditure that could possibly be avoided during the coming year. The ministers too must recognize that fact.
I want to talk to the Minister of Immigration for a minute, or two. There is nothing that we want more in this country, in my judgment, to build up Canada and help to pay the national debt than immigration. My hon. friend from Mai-sonneuve was talking about that a few minutes ago but only you cannot do it in the sleight of hand manner that he suggested. We want immigration but we want the right kind. At present we are not going about getting it in the right way. In the first place our agents in the Old Country are too glowing in their statements and our advertising is altogether too roseate. You bring a man out to this country who has, we will say, a thousand pounds, that is $5,000, and you make him believe that he can buy up the

north-west territories for that. Well he cannot. If he buys 160 acres of land, and it is anyway decent it will cost him $20 an acre-that will take $3,200. If he buys implements, and then a reasonable span of horses, and a cow, it will cost him another $1,000. There is $4,200 gone. And what kind of a shack will he be able to build with the balance? He could not build a structure very much better than a doghouse. All his money is gone, and there is no way of his getting a dollar back the first year. Therefore every man that comes to this country with a little money should be induced-no matter whether he is going to settle in the West or not-to work for somebody else for a year until he gets on his feet and learns the, conditions. In the first place, the Interior Department should re-survey all the land in the West and select the areas on which a man can successfully conduct farming operations, and not allow some unfortunate immigrant to come jnto Canada and be immediately correlled by some land agent who will sell him a stretch of sandy soil where he cannot produce anything, or locate him in some section of the country where nothing ever grows. I think that in place of these immigrants being brought to the country, dumped down in Montreal, Quebec, Toronto, or whereever it may be, and allowed to wander off like lost sheep, the Immigration Department should have somebody they <?ould absolutely depend on to take charge of these people the very moment they land, supervise their movements until they are on their feet, and see that they are not robbed of any little means they may have. It is a difficult thing for a man coming to a strange country, no matter how capable he may be, to become acclimatized, as it were, the moment he arrives, and to get to know the ways of the people. Unfortunately up in the West, as in Ontario, when the new arrival get to know the ways of the people he has no means left. I would not allow that. If a man is coming to Ontario to settle, I would very strongly advise him to put his money in the bank and work for a year going around to the threshing bees and the silo fillings in order to learn something about the ways of this county before he invests his money. I would strongly advise the Minister of Immigration to let his agents so instruct those men in the Old Country before they come here. We do not want artisans here.


James Alexander Calder: If my hon. friend will
allow me, during three days last week some
8,000	people landed at Quebec from five ships. I wonder what sort of machine we should have and what the cost would be to take care of those people for a year.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I would not let them come in flocks of that size. That is because your immigration agents induce those people to come here by holding out to them glowing prospects. That is what they tell me, anyway, and I have discussed this matter with people who have come to this country and then cut their eye teeth and got a little wisdom, and every one of them will tell you the same thing. I would only allow people to come here in such numbers that you can take care of them. Where are those unfortunate 8,000 to-night? I bet a good many of them are sorry they ever came. Not that this country is not one of the best in the world

I believe it is the best country-but at the same time there is reason in all things, and we want only such a number of people to come here each year as we can assimilate by putting them on the land or into business. I have no objection to their going into business if they have the money and they are ready to lose it, because they will certainly lose it if they do go into business.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I have got all the evil thoughts out of my mind that I had accumulated fop some time, and as I a-', busy on committees I thought I would take this opportunity of telling the Minister of Immigration what I thought his policy should be. I hope that that policy will be so improved that we will get only the sort of immigrants that we want. He knows -there is nobody wiser than he in this country-just what we want, he knows right well just how to handle those who come, and if he has not the means to handle them right, I am sure this House will vote him the means, for ive want to handle our immigration as a man would manage his business. It is no use his sitting there smiling at me. He knows just as well as I do, a good deal better in fact, just how it should be done, and it ought to be done.
Referring to the Budget, I think the Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton) did remarkably well last year, and if all his colleagues will help him as they should this year, although revenues are bound to fall, he will come out ahead next year. But he must have the assistance of every member of the Cabinet; he cannot do it all alone. The only way that I know of is for him to put the money in a safe

and stand over it with a gun. But I am quite sure the Cabinet will help him in every way, and I hope that the present stagnation of trade will be relieved by next September.
My hon. friend from Red Deer (Mr. Clark) commented this afternoon on what the Minister of Finance had said to the effect that we wanted big business, but that it was not necessarily paying business. He is quite right. My hon. friend from Red Deer took him up and said that business during war time in this country was a big and a paying business. Nobody denies that, for it was a remarkable time. You could buy anything and sell it for more than you gave generally speaking; but the reverse is the case to-day.
My hon. friend from Red Deer also said that Great Britain had doubled her trade in 1920. Well, more strength to her elbow. I have a very loyal feeling for old Great Britain and her business people. Sometimes we meet Englishmen who come out to this country and we wonder how in the world she has been the pioneer in trade, but when we meet others we begin to understand. I am glad that Great Britain doubled her trade in 1920, but she doubled it not on account of her free trade, but because she still has the greatest carrying power of any country in the world. She also did business, not with the United States her great competitor

but with the Eurq-pean countries where her money was at par and with her colonies. We increased our business with Great Britain nearly double what it was the year before. During the war and until after the armistice in 1918 Great Britain's exports had declined to almost nothing, and even if she did double her export trade in 1920 over that of 1919 she would not have done a very large business. But my argument is that it was not owing to her free trade that she did this business, but because she gave credit to European countries that had to have her goods and where the pound sterling was worth 100 cents on the dollar, as it were, and sometimes was even at a premium. There is where she tried to do business, and in that respect she was wise. The hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark) said this afternoon that our unfavourable balance of trade in respect to the United States was largely owing to our borrowings in that country and to the investment of American capital in Canada. As a matter of fact, the figures with respect to the balance of trade as between Canada and the United States as given by the Finance

Minister did not take into account our borrowings or the investments of American people in Canadian industries; they took into account simply the actual trade in goods. My honourable friend makes fun of the Minister of Finance for warning the ladies not to buy unnecessarily in the United States, but I think that his advice is good. I have no ill-feeling against the United States-none whatever. There are certain goods that we have to buy in that country. I personally am interested in one or two businesses which have to buy their raw material in the United States, for the simple reason that they cannot get it anywhere else, and it hurts very much when we have to pay that 15 per cent rate of exchange. I would advise, then, just as strongly as the Minister of Finance does, that we buy nothing that we can possibly avoid buying until our dollar is worth 100 cents in that country.
We have to have a tariff; what is the use of discussing free trade at this time' Even if it were a proper policy I do not see that we could derive any benefit from it. In speaking on the Budget in 1919, I think it was, I gave a list of farm implements required on a farm of 100 acres in Ontario including tools, machinery, harness, and all necessary equipment. I estimated the life of this equipment at ten years; if implements are properly taken care of they will last that long, some of them longer. The duty oxt this equipment spread over a period of ten years would be $28 a year, or less than one cent a bushel on the grain that the farmer would raise on that 100 acres. So that it is not the tariff that keeps the farmer from succeeding. During these last few years it has been chiefly the high cost of labour. Speaking of unemployment, the hon. member for Maisonneuve (Mr. Lemieux) pointed out that there was no unemployment between 1896 and 1911, under the Liberal regime. Thank heaven we did not have very much unemployment at that time, but condi-ditions were different then. Governments are not responsible for these changes in the commercial life of the world; the war was responsible. Europe cannot buy from us, no matter how willing we are to sell, except on long-term credit, and we cannot afford to sell on long-term credit. Therefore there has been a very substantial fall in the prices of our grains, our cattle, horses, wool, sheep, everything we raise on the farm, practically speaking, even to eggs, and as my hon. friend over there said a minute ago, butter. The prices of these

articles have fallen because there is not the export demand for them that there would be if Europe could buy. But that is not in the slightest degree the fault of tire tariff, so far as the sale of goods in Europe is concerned. As to the price of butter, we are again competing with Denmark, Belgium in England itself. New Zealand lately came into the market very strongly gainst us. Why, last winter New Zealand was exporting butter to Toronto, and so was Venezuela. So that the world, as soon as it hears of a higher market, brings the stuff into that market and we have to compete with the world-unfortunately for us, perhaps, in the effect upon the prices of our goods. But these things will, in my judgment, rectify themselves inside of another year. I do not think we should make up our minds that we are ruined.
I do think that those men who are unemployed in the country should be given an opportunity to work. I would not pay one dollar for the upkeep of any sound man who refuses to work. It is all nonsense to say that he cannot work at his trade. Perhaps he is like the fellow who is a good wood-chopper in the summer and a great harvest-hand in the winter, but who does not live up to either when the proper time comes. You need not tell me that these men who are unemployed and who hqve common intelligence cannot go out on the farm and earn fair pay if they are willing to work. On my farms I have frequently taken young fellows from the cities who never had been on a farm before, and inside a month they were as handy as any of the rest uf the men on the farm. So that I speak from experience when I say that it is all nonsense to contend that these men, if they have the opportunity, cannot learn to work on the farm and do it inside a month, thus earning their living in place of being kept by the Government or by somebody else. Of course I am not speaking of disabled men who were at the war; the country owes them all it can possibly do for them. But I do say that the able-bodied man has just as much right to work as any of us have; I would give him the opportunity -to work and if he did not take it I would not keep him any longer. I would like just once more to say that the Minister of Finance was very wise in postponing a general revision of the tariff for this year, on account of the unsettled condition of the trade of the world. He has shown excellent business capacity in the other taxes that he has imposed, and I hope we will get enough revenue to pay our way.
On motion of Mr. Davis the debate was adjourned.



LEAVE FOR MR. CRERAR TO ATTEND SENATE COMMITTEE

Henry Lumley Drayton: That a message be sent to the Senate to acquaint Their Honours that this House agrees to the request of the Senate to give leave to the Honourable Thomas Alexander Crerar, M.P., to attend and give evidence before the special committee of the Senate apointed to inquire into and report at this session upon the conditions which are responsible for the large portion of our export trade (more especially the products of the West) being routed via American instead of Canadian ports.
MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER: This motion, of course, requires unanimous consent as no notice has been given.


Mr. FIELDING:: It is understood that the hon. member desires to be present*


Henry Lumley Drayton: I understand
that this is entirely formal. The request has been granted. Personally I am sorry that I cannot give the assurance the hon. member desires to attend, but I understand that to be the fact.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
On the motion of Hon. Sir Henry Drayton the House adjourned at 11.50 p.m.
Thursday, May 12, 1921.